M4 – Written Assignment: Crimes and their Causes
Instructions
Lilly, Cullen and Ball write, “Lawlessness is a costly problem; people lose their property and sometimes their lives. The search for the sources of crime, then, is not done within a vacuum. Even if a theorist wishes only to ruminate about the causes of theft or violence, others will be ready to use these insights to direct efforts to do something about the crime problem. Understanding why crime occurs, then, is a prelude to developing strategies to control the behavior.” (5)
Identify a crime (such as white-collar, organized, robbery, larceny, murder) and attempt to explain its causes by examining at least two different criminological theories. How do explanations for the causes of these crimes help determine appropriate legal responses to the behavior?