Analysis of Crime

Crime costs in various ways, so we also pay a price simply for the fact of crime. Crime is broadly defined here as "the wrongs we do ourselves and others" (Nettler, 1996, 1). This makes crime a moral determination, and the author says there is thus no essence of criminality to be observed in a situation because the definition is in some degree itself situational, based on the moral criteria used. In the legal sense the term "refers only to those injuries condemned by the criminal code of a state and prosecuted by a government" (Nettler, 1996, 1). Morals change over time, so the precise definitions even of generally accepted crimes like theft and murder will vary at different times, as reflected in the criminal code of a society. Concepts of victims also affect how crime is viewed and depends "on attributions of responsibility and conceptions of harm" (Nettler, 1996, 4).

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e. Just as society counts crimes, so does society count victims and emphasize the importance of victimization in allocating resources to fight crime. Nettler divides the issue of crime into categories based on what she calls the social location of serious crime, and she finds that crime centers on three sets of social locations--age and sex, wealth, and ethnicity and urbanism. These social locations are correlations that can be used to describe criminal acts and actors and the social settings of different crimes. The search for the causes of crime proceeds by counting the correlates of crime: "'Correlation' refers simply to association, while 'causation' refers to power to effect a change in events or situations" (Nettler, 1996, 98). Understanding these correlates is a start toward achieving causation and reducing crime. The concept of rational crime is interesting as defined by Nettler--rational crime includes the wrongs we do one another in order to get what we want. Crime is thus defined as rational because it has a purpose, even though that purpose may be immoral. A rational act is something done consciously, and crime is something done from volition and so consciously. Rational crime can also be seen to have som
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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