The Rise Of Violent Crime In Canada — страница 3

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disgrace, negative praise etc … and other forms of deterrence that are created by society. These levels of punishment equal the importance of the laws that they enforce in the eyes of the society. Laws against criminal behaviour has the criminal justice system in place to enforce and act as a form of social control. “A formal system that responds to the alleged violations of laws using police, courts and punishments …” Therefore although society as a whole sees crime as a personal failure and a choice of the individual to act upon. Society is the anvil on which ideas of good and evil are wrought and the individuals are hammered into conformity with applied force that is physical and personality shaping. This act is an integral part of becoming a social organisation which

is defining of its own nature. Until recent years, there have been many sociological theories to try and explain the appearance of violent crime in society. In 1876, Caesre Lombross put forth the idea that stated that there were biological features that would allow to pick out individuals that would be more prone to commit these acts of violence. He stated that violent criminals have low foreheads, hairiness and long arms. He stated that criminals were not as advanced in evolution as the rest of society. Later on in his career he discarded his previous ideas of criminals having distinct physical features. He accepted and put forth the idea that social factors hold great importance in the formation of criminality. Even though he did this, for many years after his death

sociologists tried to prove his theories of biological factors being a great factor in the development of criminal behaviour. Recently genetics have reinvoked these biological causes of criminality with the idea that men with the extra Y chromosome are more likely to be violent offenders than men without the extra chromosome. As of now, no evidence has been produced to support this extra chromosome corresponding with the increased likelihood of violent crime. Currently researchers have focused their attention on the influences of social conditions and customs. We have recently gone through a recession which has resulted in the government having to cut their over expenditures resulting in a poor economic situation. There have been major cuts on an already overwhelmed social safety

system. This has caused greater levels of unemployment, homelessness, anger and disparity. This may be the cause for the rise in armed/robbery rates around Canada. It has been shown that in the past when there have great economic hardships, the rate of violent crime has increased as is with the present day. Many of the reasons for the increase in social protection and laws has been that it has been instituted to a higher degree in the Criminal Justice System. Tougher sentences are being given out as the state fails in controlling the populace. This has resulted in the system being overburdened resulting inadequate treatment of the alleged offenders. With services such as legal aid being inadequate and available to only the most dire cases. With these tougher sentences, people are

in jail longer which has resulted in an overcrowded prison system. The treatment of the prisoners cannot be considered anything else but inhumane or putting rats into a confined cage. While these people are in prison, there is nothing special for them to do. There is no rehabilitation programs or set regiment for the prisoners to follow. Basically the prisoners just sit around and do nothing except eat, sleep and get angry at the fact that they have been imprisoned. They just put you into a confined space with a lot of other individuals who are full of anger. Socially, these people are made to feel alienated with all their personal rights being taken away from them. Including the right to go where you please, any basic freedom is taken. This causes them to feel like outcasts in

their own societies who consider them to be failures. The state and atmosphere they are kept in is one filled with violence and mistrust, and all that comes from violence is more violence. Criminality is enforced in these institutions as each individual has to follow a new set of customs and laws that exists as a sub-culture of Canadian culture. The prisoners hate the outside society for forcing them to be locked up away from the mainstream of the society they used to exist in. This causes anti – social behaviour to arise from the prisoners as they assume the role society has given them which is the idea that they cannot exist in the main society around them. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, community based programs were being implemented and used to try and rehabilitate