Crime Control Strategies

Crime Control Strategies
A wealthy man and his pregnant wife were going through a divorce. Rather than pay alimony and child support, the man hired someone to kill his wife and make it look like an accident. This crime is demonstrated as the rational choice theory. This man knew exactly what he was doing when he had someone hired to kill his pregnant wife. He made his own decisions and knew what would happen if he was to be caught.

Criminal behavior is explained, as "no matter how destructive or seemingly irresponsible, is actually a matter of thought and decision making"(L.J. Siegle, 2012, p. 102). Situational crime prevention is a strategy is what they try to use on someone who isn't yet a criminal or will be a criminal they try to set up guards or home security systems to try and leer the criminal away and making the people less likely targets. This effect doesn't always work, because it will be ignored if they have their minds made up. General deterrence strategies are strategies that were meant to make a criminal think before they acted, because if they act upon their decision they will have penalties and punishments of all sorts with the law. This is effective if people actually fear punishment, but most people know there are consequences for their actions and they chose to ignore it and set out on their task anyways. Another strategy is specific deterrence strategy, this strategy is known to people who are already criminals to not repeat their acts and give them severe punishments due to the crimes that they have committed. If they do commit the act they will be put in very strict prisons and maybe not even the possibility of getting back out from behind the prison walls. The only bad effect of this is, people still choose to ignore what they have done and commit the crimes again anyways instead of the crime going down. The last strategy is incapacitation Strategies, these strategies are known to stop motivated offenders and to try to reduce the crimes being done. If the offenders still feel the same and want to commit another crime then they put them behind bars for longer times so that they cannot commit crimes. This requires more people behind bars and it becomes costly especially due to the people that commit minor crimes repeatedly, because they are being locked away for more time than what they were originally sentenced for.

Every strategy is effective but just like anything else they are not 100% effective. They can only make so many laws and strategies to help reduce criminal acts, but nothing will ever be 100%. It's a good thing that these strategies are used wisely so that criminal acts are reduced and more people are saved and safe in their homes and where they walk and visit. People make their own choices in everything they do and if they know their committing a crime due to get themselves more money or because someone left them and feel like if they leave them no one else can have them, then they are in the rational choice theory.

Reference: Siegel, L. J. (2012). Criminology (11th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.