Social Predictors Of Violence And Dangerousness Summary
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Chapter five in “Social Predictors of Violence and Dangerousness” first went into the history of predicting criminal patters and trends and later into some theories that represent methods of predicting crime. The first portion of the chapter went into the historical development of crime prediction. It discussed the use of math in “social physics”, the concept of moving a concrete field like mathematics into the social sciences to predict criminal trends. Beyond this were famous people such as Karl Marx and Max Weber who went down a more humanistic line of thought when discussing crime. After the historical section, many theories on violence were introduced. These theories included social strain theories, social learning theories, social control…show more content… Its focus largely rests on victimization rather than the criminals. In some ways, it comes off as blaming the victims for the crimes. For example, if a house lacks a security system and said house gets burglarized. By this theory, it would be the property owners fault for not having proper steps in place, such as a security system, to reduce the risk and deter the offender from perceiving a low risk. Additionally, in many ways, this theory mainly seems to cover property crimes like larceny and burglary more than violence crimes, as the book brought attention to. Once again, the explanation as to how it related to violent crime goes back to pointing fingers at the victim. It refers to certain “lifestyles and routines” and leading to an increased risk of victimization. In other words, the blame rests on victims. The offenders are just taking advantage of a situation with little risk created by victims. I do like the concept and think it creates a valid basis for the concept of deterrence. I also cant argue with the idea that certain lifestyles, like someone who is into drugs and partying, would increase their risk of victimization. The idea that the actions of the victim matter just as much, if not more, than the actions of the offender when it comes to preventing, or predicting, criminal activity just feels…show more content… Though the routine activity theory had some areas that did not sit well with me, the general theory of crime took elements from this theory, as well as the rational choice theory and self control theories to give the perception that the ideas are not meant to be victim blaming. Instead, it is meant to bring about the fact that certain areas and situations are more conducive to criminal activity than others, be it violent crime or property