Crime: Child Abuse
It has often been the opinion of many members of society that those who commit terrible offenses, such as child abuse, are simply sociopaths, and as a result, their actions can only be described as evil in nature. Yet this deterministic way of looking at such crimes fundamentally detracts from any meaningful analysis of both what the crime is and the reasons behind its perpetration: "These characterizations may explain some acts of child abuse just as they explain some conventional violent crime, but they ignore a host of important social structural and cultural factors that impact upon all forms of violence, "(Brown 558-9). One of the key features of child abuse is simply that it is deemed immoral by mainstream American society; judging from this observation, it is often more useful to determine precisely which factors cause people to not commit acts of child abuse. From the standpoint of social controls, the issue takes this wholly different form: "People commit crimes because it is in their nature to do so. The question that really needs an answer is why do most people not commit crimes," (Leighninger 327). Just as those who decide to become johns might justify their actions by pointing to the inconsistencies between the law
In other words, the continuing problem of prostitution may imply that the criminal law norms in the United States are perceived to be inconsistent by many members of society; people might see prostitution as a victimless crime, and accordingly, decide to deviate from the norms set by society by becoming a john. Social learning theory and control theory both avoid this difficulty and offer differing bits of information into the discussion of child abuse. Accordingly, if it is innate, then society has no justification for prosecuting pedophiles or violent parents; it was the way they were born. It is far more reasonable to eliminate the clandestine nature of prostitution rather than the act itself-the latter will never go away. Yet it is historically problematic to assert that the solution to these auxiliary social problems is repression of prostitution: additional repression will only force prostitution deeper into hiding. However, the stronger theory to apply to these results is the social learning theory. Clearly the abusers, in these circumstances, have taken a moral stance with regard to the abuse that they deal-out. However, determining the specific controls that apply themselves to child abuse remains somewhat difficult because the moral considerations surrounding it are highly ambiguous. It is reasonable to believe, for instance, that those individuals who never form a close bond with their mothers receive few daily indicators of how to appropriately behave among females; consequently, their innate drive to procreate irrevocably associates with aggression and with inappropriate sexual desires-like children. By contrast, the standpoint of evolutionary psychology would inevitably indicate that certain individuals, upon birth, are more prone to become child abusers than others. From this standpoint, many contend that prostitution in the United States is an institution that should not be tolerated, in the interest of protecting women from violence (Taft 257). Furthermore, there is compelling evidence to suggest that people become abusers as a result of certain socialization factors. It is often noted that the very nature of prostitution in America lends itself nicely to other criminal activities, including murder, rape, and drugs.
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Acceptance Essays
