Criminology
In Marcus Felson's book Crime and Everyday Life, Felson discussestemptations without controls, the chemistry for crime, delivering crime to yourdoorstep, and out-of-sync youth in chapters 2-5. In this paper I am going tosummarize and critique each chapter. Felson titled chapter 2 Temptations Without Controls. Throughout thechapter Felson shows how crime thrives on temptations without controls. Heshows how these words refer to the immediate environment as it provides theroots for crime. He goes on to say that even crime's deeper roots from the pastmust accomplish the physical delivery of temptations without controls. In orderto find out which of these two forces has the upper hand in any given setting orin society as a whole, Felson says that we need to study particular crime typesand the settings that generate them, including workplaces, schools, recreationareas, residential streets, and transport systems. There were some things that stuck out of chapter 2. Travis Hirschi'spresentation of crime as not asking, "Why did such a terrible person do thatawful thing?', but instead, "Why doesn't everybody engage in crime?". Hirschiargues that crime needs no special motivat
The "routine activity approach" emphasizes how illegal activitiesfeed on routine legal activities and that everyday life sometimes deliverstemptations without controls, thus organizing the amount and type of crime insociety. Another answer was also given to the question, it statesthat everyday life delivers temptations unevenly, and that crime is committedmainly by people who are tempted more and controlled less. If wecan know those three things than a lot of crime can be prevented from everhappening. Also it wouldn't necessarily lead to more interracial contacts. Felson links the history of crimeto four great leaps in transportation technology: putting animals to work,building carts for animals to pull, developing railroads, subways, and streetcars,and designing and spreading the automobile. Villages are absorbed into towns and towns into cities. People that are not interested in a routine life will instead goout and try different things to excite them. Those stages being in order: village, town, convergent city, divergentmetropolis, and the metropolitan reef. Felson says that youth are physicallyprepared for two tasks: doing work and raising a family. He writesthat predatory crimes focus on targets where guardians are absent, which to mestresses the importance of a good family and a good group of friends. If I were studying crime, the first question thatI would want answered would be how can someone do such an awful thing andwhy would they want to do it. Felson looks at some different presence's, temptations, and controls inchapter 2. Each one makes very interestingpoints and I learn something new from each reading.
Common topics in this essay:
Youth Felson,
Crime Felson,
Travis Hirschi's,
Doorstep Felson,
Los Angeles,
Controls Throughout,
United Felson,
Life Felson,
Everyday Life,
everyday life,
temptations controls,
felson writes,
illegal activities,
divergent metropolis,
chapter 2,
crime everyday,
crime everyday life,
felson makes,
Crime Everyday,
illegal activities feed,
convergent city,
illegal sales,
routine activity approach,
activities feed routine,
feel illegal activities,
|