Rape and Murder, Anger Rapist?
...hool of criminology developed by the Italian social thinker Cesare Beccaria (Siegel, 2003, p. 107)”. Rational choice theory says that “crime and punishment must be proportional; if not people would be encouraged to commit more serious crimes”. The person that committed this crime did it because it either gave him pleasure and happiness or because it erased unhappiness and pain, which is the view of Britain philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. The murderer and rapist in this case felt that the crime he committed was worth it so much that he risked getting caught. The person who did this can be referred to as the reasoning criminal because he evaluated the risk of being caught against the potential value of the crime. This crime was an offender-specific crime because the criminal had to decide if he had the “prerequisites” (Siegel, 2003, p. 109) before he committed the crime. He had to decide if he could reach his goal through legitimate ways and if he could not then crime was the only way. Criminals structure their life around crime as well as every criminal act they complete. Before every crime, the person analyzes three things. Those three things are “the type of crime, the time and place of the crime and the target” (Siegel, 2003, p. 111). In this case, the suspect chose for the crime to be rape. I do not think that murder was intended but I believe the woman fought back which caused the offender to get angry and that eventually led to the murder. At the preliminary investigation, it was noted that the victim's shirt was pulled up over her face. This was probably done so that the woman would not remember the man’s face. But as I just stated, he probably became enraged like most anger rapists and decided to kill her because he hated women. As for the time and place of the crime, the offender chose a time that he felt was very opportune. If he had stalked his victim, the he knew that her husband was out of town, that she had taken the day off of work, and since it was after 8am, then she must have already dropped the children off at school. Also the offender was in and out in time before anyone would take notice of the house, for example the mailman who was the one that found the body. As for the target that was chosen, it was a very good one. He chose someone who was all alone and for the crime of rape, obviously he chose a woman. This woman might have been a weak woman and that could have been why he chose her but we do not know that for sure. A theory that could pertain to this crime is the relative deprivation theory. This theory states that “crime occurs when the wealthy and the poor live close to one another (Siegel, 2003, p. 205). Since this crime happened in Chicago, from prior experience I could tell you that there are areas where the wealthy do live next to the poor. The north part of Chicago is very wealthy while the south side is absolutely terrible. In the middle of Chicago, you get quite a blend of the ghetto and the wealthy where there is quite a racial difference. So based on how Chicago is set up, this proves very strongly the relative deprivation theory. Another theory that could describe what brought about this crime is the social process theories. “One of the most prominent social learning theories is Edwin H. Sutherland’s differential association theory” (Siegel, 2003, p. 220). Some of the key principles of differential association are that criminal behavior is learned, learning is a by-product of interaction, learning occurs within intimate groups, criminal techniques are learned, perceptions of legal code influence motive and drives (Siegel, 2003, p. 221). The statement criminal behavior is learned suggest that learning these behaviors is an easy as learning basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Another element of differential association is that learning criminal behavior is a by-product of interaction with others. Sutherland thought people did not just start breaking the law because of the environment they lived in but because they were taught by others. In the cases of anger rapists, they did grow up in a bad environment but though watching their parents and through “inappropriate” interactions done to them, they learned about a life of crime. Another point of differential association is that “learning occurs within intimate groups. What this means is that children learn from their parents what is right and what is wrong. So if this offender had been abused, molested and harassed as a child then when that child grows up he has these same views. This is why he views it as ok to abuse the victim, harass her, rape (molest) her, and with all of that he has put it one step further by murdering her. Using differential association, the criminal commits the crime when the negatives outweigh the positives. In this case two negatives are do not get mad, get even and do not let anyone push you around. In the offender’s case, since he was angry about his own childhood he decided to do something about it to get even and not take anything from anyone. A key theory in figuring out rapist, power or anger, is the neutralization theory. This theory was developed by David Matza and his associate Gresham Sykes (Siegel, 2003, p. 225). They say that becoming a criminal is a learning experience just like anything else one learns in school. They “master techniques that enable them to counterbalance or neutralize conventional values and drift back and forth between illegitimate and conventional behavior. This is just like a good definition of a rapist. Rapist do have low social skills but they are able to control themselves while in public coming off as looking like other normal human beings. But their mind is not like the average person because this is obvious when they go out and commit the heinous crimes of rape, physical abuse, and in this case murder. Another reason that the offender committed the crime can be explained by Hirschi’s social bond theory. Hirschi believes the increase in crime is due to the weakened ties of people to society (Siegel, 2003, p. 229). Hirschi feels that while all people can become eventual law breakers, they do not break the law because of the fear of humiliation by members of the family or community. Without these bonds, then people would be free to commit any act of crime they please because there would be no humiliation. In the case of the offender, since he is probably an anger rapist, when he was a child he grew no bonds because of his hate for women. Also, in most cases the children of these bad homes, has a mom that has many “boyfriends” and because of the constant changing of men, the offender never grew a bond with any significant father figure. There are four main elements to the social bond theory. They are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. If people do not have a sense of attachment, the psychologists think that those people will become psychopaths and will not relate with the rest of the world. Commitment refers to the time people put in during their youth years to get an education and good job. If they are spending their time doing this, then they can not be out on the streets committing crimes. This also cuts down on risk taking behaviors. The third element of involvement means if people are involved in activities then they will not have time to do illegal activities. The last element is belief which means those that hang around together have the same beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. A person such as the offender is one that does not have social relationships or responsibilities will be more likely to abandon their goals and take the illegitimate path to accomplish their goals. As a youth, the offender probably did not have a strong attachment to his parents and did not attend school often so he gave up the goals and headed for drinking, smoking, and drugs which eventually led to bigger crimes such as rape and murder, in this case. What keeps people into crime has a lot to do with labeling process. When children start getting involved in the wrong kind of activities, they get arrested. It is when they get arrested that the police and court authorities start the labeling process by labeling them “official” criminals Siegel, 2003, p. (233). Once a child is labeled, it is then shunned by society. Those youth then start thinking of themselves as not the norm and this is what starts them on the way to their criminal careers. The social conflict theory brings us into the thoughts of Karl Marx. Marx felt that there was a separation of classes going on in the world during his capitalist days. Marx saw three classes of people in the world and they were the capitalist bourgeoisie, the proletariat, and the lumpen proletariat. The interacting between these groups was called the productive relations. Marx felt the most important relationship was between the capitalist bourgeoisie, also known as the owners of production and the proletariat, also known as the worker. The majority of classes in the world today are the proletariat. I believe the rapist in this case is a proletariat just like many others and he killed a member of the capitalist bourgeoisie because she was an upscale, prestigious accountant. Marx said about crime that “There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases in wealth without diminishing its misery and increased in crime even more rapidly than in numbers” (Siegel, 2003, p. 253). Now those are many of the theories that pertain to this crime of rape and murder. The person that committed this crime has many reasons for his actions and these theories explai...