The Rational Choice Theory of Crime

The Rational Choice Theory of Crime

Introduction

The term crime generally refers to any form of immoral, illegal or unethical act that may cause harm to an individual, an object or the society. Usually, any sort of act that may directly or indirectly inflict harm upon anyone is considered as a crime. Criminal acts have existed from the beginning of time. Man has been tempted into breaking the system and committing acts of harm since the start of evolution. In every country of the world and by every existing government, every crime is punishable by law, depending on the degree of the crime.

Criminology is the study of the extent, causes, reasons and nature of crime and criminal behaviour in a scientific manner. It is also the study of controlling criminal behaviour in the society and in individuals. The main areas of research in criminology include evidence analysis, consequences of crimes, quantitative analysis of crime and breaches of regulations. The term criminology was first termed by an Italian law professor Garofalo in 1885.

Criminology can be further divided into four theories: Rational Choice Theory, Biological Positivism, Sociological Positivism and Psychological Positivism.

Discussion

The Rational Choice Theory of Crime

The Rational Choice Theory of criminology proposes that man is an actor (with reasoning) who weighs the means and ends, benefits and costs and every angle of a situation before making a rational choice and decision. The theory insists that criminals are actors who consciously decide what has to be done and work on their decision. This theory has been derived from older hypothesis of similar nature and has been made stronger by the contribution of scientific investigations (Allingham, 2002).

The Rational Theory of Crime states that a man will weigh all his options before deciding what needs to be done or how to execute his ...