FOR PROF MAURICE ONLY — Assignment 2: RA: Criminal Behavior in Your Community
Running head: CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR 0 Criminal Behavior Sherry L. Crowe Dr. Robert Meyer Psychology of Criminal Behavior FP6015 May 24, 2017 The criminal behavior that I have chosen for this is homicide. Homicide is death caused by one person taking the life of another person notwithstanding the intention of their action. Homicide is a broad term used to describe various categories of killings with murder and manslaughter being the most prevalent. Others include; euthanasia, war killings, and capital punishment. Homicide is further subdivided into criminal and non-criminal types depending on the context and laws of a particular jurisdiction (Geberth, 2013). Thereby causing some homicide behaviors to be accepted in society even by the legal system, while others will be shunned and attract huge ethical and legal sanctioning. The legally accepted homicide includes; euthanasia in jurisdictions that accept it and capital punishment. On the other hand, one may be convicted of manslaughter homicide with or without the intent of killing as long as their action harms another person to an extent of causing death. Manslaughter may also be a result of voluntary action based on passion from emotions that blur an individual’s judgment abilities leading them to kill. In accidents, the death must occur within the first year of neglect behavior. There are situations that call for excusable homicide. This may include killing of others by authorized persons such as law enforcement agencies in the aim of protecting a nation from its enemies. Thus, the law enforcement agencies in the country may be ordered to kill. Other situations that may call for actions involving killing may be during the prevention of crime where police officers may be forced to use deadly force to be able to protect the lives and liberties of other citizens from the harm and potential harm. Another legally accepted justification is insanity, intoxication or necessity including self-defense and that of others. Whereas homicide is a crime committed across all social; classes, it has been found to be prevalent with poverty and other social factors such as stress. Thus, the area of focus here is the low socio-economic class that has to be underprivileged with the means to take care of their needs. Homicide affects all people in society. However, the group of focus is the youth in society who may be pushed into committing homicide in the quest to provide for their needs (Singh, et.al, 2013). In a society that fosters unequal competition and contentions towards success in wealth and power, some youth who find role models in celebrities may be compelled into finding a means to reach their target. Homicide and especially criminal homicide occurs in society and needs to be addressed by the society in general. This calls for awareness creation campaigns among communities and groups on homicide. Similarly, civilians need to collaborate with law enforcement agencies by reporting early signs of homicide within the community and evidence when called upon to give their testimonies. When called upon to act on a case, the police should be ready to handle the situation promptly. Having identified the major casualty as being poverty, it is necessary to initiate programs that empower youths with job skills and enhance their talents (Stansfield, Williams & Parker, 2017). Thus, it becomes a way of helping them achieve their goals in the right way. Besides, it is necessary to empower the group with life skills that will; enable them to be confident while handling crisis situations and these that provoke emotions. It may also involve learning relation techniques to help them in making rational decisions. With the elimination of poverty and awareness creation in society, there is a high likelihood of the reduction of homicides. Further, a collaboration between the police and civilians as a means of helping to reduce homicide that has proven to work. References Geberth, V. J. (2013). Practical homicide investigation checklist and field Guide. cRc Press. Singh, G. K., Azuine, R. E., Siahpush, M., & Kogan, M. D. (2013). All-cause and cause-specific mortality among US youth: socioeconomic and rural–urban disparities and international patterns. Journal of Urban Health, 90(3), 388-405. Stansfield, R., Williams, K. R., & Parker, K. F. (2017). Economic Disadvantage and Homicide: Estimating Temporal Trends in Adolescence and Adulthood. Homicide Studies, 21(1), 59-81.
FOR PROF MAURICE ONLY — Assignment 2: RA: Criminal Behavior in Your Community
Running head: IDENTIFYING AND GATHERING RELEVANT DATA 0 Identifying and Gathering Relevant Data Sherry L. Crowe Dr. Robert Meyer Psychology of Criminal Behavior FP6015 May 24, 2017 Homicide is the killing of human beings by another person. Murder and manslaughter are both forms of execution. The death inflicted by a person taking another person’s life regardless of the intention of the action is a criminal offence. Homicide is a crime according to United States Laws, as is many other states globally. Justified self-defense is not categorized as a crime. Similarly, there are other forms of murder including euthanasia, killing during war, and capital punishment of a person (Smith, 2013). Homicide can be categorized into criminal and non-criminal. Criminal homicide is like murder or manslaughter; this is when there is killing by intention and without any danger being imposed on the murderer (Reid, 2016). Non-criminal includes capital punishment of a convicted person and euthanasia in respective jurisdictions. This involves the arms of government who are mandated to protect the nation, and in that event, they can kill to eliminate the public threat. Actions like terrorism and international security threat can fall under excused homicide in the aim of protecting the people and reducing the risk. Insanity poses another accepted justification of killing, and induced killing in aid of self-defense and the others security is among the noncriminal homicide (Eriksson, 2013). Many aspects contribute and accelerate the rate of homicide, the poverty of people and poor social status can lead to people into stress and committing crimes that are either criminal or non-criminal (Riedel, 2015). The socio-economic situation of people influences the rate of homicide in the society. The less privileged individuals in the community are the most affected in the sense that they undergo a lot of mental and physical stress in satisfying their needs and livelihood. The most affected group in the society is the youth; youth more often are perpetrators of the crime. Extreme lifestyle cases and peer pressure has played a key role in the determination of the criminal activities that are experienced in the society today. Societal achievement and different opportunities available in the lifestyle arena engages the young people’s minds in a negative way to an extent they make the un-informed decision due to rushing to find solutions. According to the FBI, the rate of crime in the US increased by 3.9 percent in 2015 an increase from the previous year. The criminal cases have escalated because of the rate at which societal influence has impacted on the people with the rise of technology and lifestyle change (Cramer, 2016). Social and human rights education must be addressed to the public, and thus the relevant government must ensure that they engage the appropriate authorities in the exercising of the human rights and thereby reduction of crime in the society (Matejkowski, 2014). Consequently, the criminal gangs must be eliminated from the society to reduce the criminality in the community. There should be a well-defined curriculum in schools on behavior change to mentor good citizens in the society who respect law and order. Community policing and real collaboration with the law enforcers is also another aspect that must be enhanced to eliminate vice in the society. Transparency and fairness must be employed when solving the criminal cases. This will ensure that only the legal liable persons are convicted of the crimes that they committed and not innocent people. The courts must be fair and transparent to the extent of the truth and impose the penalty to be taken by the convicts. In San Diego County, there was a “total of 5,409 Part 1 violent crimes which include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Between January and June of 2016 there was an average of 30 per day and about one more per day than the first half of 2015 (Burke, 2015).” In the state of California, the homicide reported in 2015 was 1,861 which was an increase of 164 from 2014. That is a twenty-five point one decrease from the 2,483 reports in 2006 (Harris, 2015). References Burke, C., Ph.D. (2016). Crime in the San Diego Region Mid-Year 2016 Statistics. Criminal Justice Research Division, SANDAG, 3-18. Retrieved May 31, 2017, from http://www.delmar.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/2490 Cramer, C. E. (2016). Why the FBI’s Justifiable Homicide Statistics Are a Misleading Measure of Defensive Gun Use. U. Fla. JL & Pub. Pol’y, 27, 505. Eriksson, L., & Mazerolle, P. (2013). A general strain theory of intimate partner homicide. Aggression and violent behavior, 18(5), 462-470. Harris, K. D. (2015). California Homicide Statistics for 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2017, from https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cjsc/publications/homicide/hm15/hm15.pdf? Matejkowski, J., Fairfax-Columbo, J., Cullen, S. W., Marcus, S. C., & Solomon, P. L. (2014). Exploring the potential of stricter gun restrictions for people with serious mental illness to reduce homicide in the United States. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 25(3), 362-369. Reid, S. (2016). Compulsive criminal homicide: A new nosology for serial murder. Aggression and Violent Behavior. Riedel, M., & Welsh, W. N. (2015). Criminal violence: Patterns, causes, and prevention. OUP Us. Smith, E. L., & Cooper, A. (2013). Homicide in the US known to law enforcement, 2011. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.