Essay on "Humans Have Been Contemplating Their Existence"

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humans have been contemplating their existence there has been a duality of belief about choices individuals make for both good and evil. Utilitarianism is a philosophy that holds that humans are reasoning beings and are able to weigh options and consequences and come up with rational choices -- costs, benefits, etc. In order to make decisions. Delinquency, for instance, has been part of history for thousands of years -- typically founded upon an economic theory in which marginalized youth, being unable to take advance of opportunities and usually pressed towards the edge of society. For example, if one looks at the concept of childhood, one finds it to be a relatively modern paradigm -- and with it, the idea that aberrant behavior can be thought of as indicative of larger behavioral patterns that are based solely within the confines of culture. "a Weakness of incompleteness of much sociologic reasoning on the causal process in crime is the assumption that the mass social stimulus to behavior, as reflected in the particular culture of a region, is alone, or primarily, the significant causal force" (Cullen and Agnew, 2011, 466). Essentially then, if one understands why a crime is being committed, one might help society develop ways to mitigate crime. Choice theory in its most basic form says that individuals look at opportunities within society, weigh the positives and negatives (chances to get caught, punishment, gain, etc.) and choose to proceed or not based on that choice).

There are both positives and negatives about Choice Theory when it comes to criminal activity as presented by the authors. The strength of the argument is that is logical and follows basic psychological theory. It is also stron

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g in terms of motivation -- if society makes the punishment so stringent that the criminal is demotivated to commit a crime, then it is possible most criminal activity would cease. If one adopts the idea of rational choice, then deterrence is a major means of controlling crime. Punishments, then, for society, should fit the crime and be severe enough to make the individual wary of committing them because the system is so professional that they will likely get caught. "The point… is that… people are likely to have a mixture of indirect and direct experience with punishment and punishment avoidance"( Stafford and Warr, 2011, 396). The U.S. Justice system is inherently based on this theory.

The negatives surrounding the theory is that there are always people who think they can beat the system, and always willing to try something new; a new scheme, a new idea, or even a new manner of committing crime. While everyone else may get caught -- they won't. Couple this with a relatively unequal justice system in which individuals are able to get away with committing crimes based on their economic status (hiring lawyers, who they know, political connections, etc.), and that punishment is not necessarily equal. If someone shoplifts, for instance, and is caught, they will likely have relatively little punishment if this is their first offense. On the other hand, America's drug laws have quite serious penalties for what many consider a mental illness. One must ask what society is willing to do to deter crime --… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Humans Have Been Contemplating Their Existence" Assignment:

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Assign this paper to an American ***** only. This paper should be based on the readings I sent. When writing, make sure you think about what the authors are saying (do not rely solely on someone*****s findings or what they say someone else found). If you use a direct quote from a reading, you must provide me with the name of the author and the page number where the quote was taken from. If you borrow or use materials that are not sent for this paper, you need to provide me with full citations (author, date, location of article, etc.) for these works. Please make the paper respond to the question being asked and you MUST use the readings sent. Do not just summarize each of the sent readings. Integrate the readings while developing your answers. You do not need to use materials that are not provided. Your answer must be in your own words. DO NOT use lengthy quotes from the materials sent. I would expect that the paper be in propper APA format. All work should be saved in RTF format. Opinions are okay. But ONLY IF YOU SUPPORT YOUR OPINIONS with materials sent or elsewhere. This does not mean you may forget about the readings. You should first use the readings and then you may want to add your opinions/experiences to say whether you agree or do not agree with the readings. Paragraphs should be a minimum of 3 sentences and no more than 8. In the first paragraph of any paper you should state what the paper is about, briefly, and then use the following paragraphs to make your points. You should end you papers with a concluding paragraph in which you review what you stated in the previous paragraphs and why it is relevant. Flow is important. You must always use citations to develop and defend your arguments in the empirical findings of the assigned readings. You should base your arguments on the evidence you find in as many of the empirical readings as you can. Please remember, failure to use appropriate citation constitutes plagiarism. Work from an outline. If you use an outline (no matter how basic), your thoughts will be better

organized and your arguments will be more coherent. Also, make sure to include all of the readings in the paper that I send. Use subheadings in your papers where appropriate ***** it will keep you organized.

Here are a few examples of what your citations should look like:

Citing 1 author - (Smith, 2002).

Citing 2 authors - (Smith & Smith, 2002).

Citing 3 or more authors - (Smith et al., 2002).

Please use APA style in your papers. A great resource if you*****re not familiar with this citation style is:(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01)

With all that said, here is the question you must answer in the paper:

1) Examine the strengths and limitations of rational-choice based perspectives.

2) Explain how developmental theories have recently informed our understanding of criminal behavior as a developmental process. *****

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