Various theories try to explain why people commit crimes, keep on doing crimes or stop committing crimes. Some theories argue that an individual commits crime due to personality traits that push him or her into committing the offense. Others assert that crime occurs when people are driven by culture to have something but don’t have the means to achieve those things they desire. Deterrence theory argues that crime can be inhibited depending on the punishment attributed to the offense. For example, in the case of general deterrence, when one thinks of committing a crime but stops when he or she remembers that he or she is going to be arrested or is going to be subject to the laws against crime in that country.
General deterrence occurs when someone who has never committed crime stops from committing crime because he or she fears the punishment associated with that crime. Whatever prevents this individual from committing a crime is the tension and fear of facing the legal punishment.
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In case somebody who completed his or her term in prison recently refrains from committing crime because of the fear of being arrested and convicted again, this state is referred to as specific deterrence. That person is said to be deterred by the sanction of imprisonment. Specific deterrence occurs when an individual who has felt the wrath of the legal punishment refrains from doing another crime because he or she fears to be punished again.
Rational choice theory is a bit more complicated than the deterrence theory. It incorporates many more other factors other than the risk of legal punishment. It takes the stand that those who commit crime are not forced to commit a crime by some extraordinary force. They don’t have different personalities from those who don’t commit crimes, neither were they socialized into a culture that motivates criminal actions. They both willingly chose their behavior on a rational consideration of what benefits they are going to gain from their actions.The rational offender then decides to commit crime because he or she feels that it will be more rewarding and more satisfactory than a non-criminal character.
The rational theory argues that people commit crimes by making choices. But if that is the case, why do some individuals commit crimes occasionally? On what basis do people make decisions to commit crimes and not to? The rational choice theory argues that when a person decides to commit or not to commit a crime, he or she is guided by the costs and benefits attributed to the two alternatives. The theory argues that when an individual thinks of committing crime, he or she thinks first of the costs and the benefits of committing the crime and also the costs and benefits of not committing such a crime before making a decision
An individual makes a decision to commit crime or not by weighing both the costs of both alternatives. The rational choice theory argues that people may not be perfectly rational in making their choices sometimes they tend to take shortcuts in analyzing the costs and benefits attributed to each course of action. Most a times they end up being misinformed, and this affects how they weigh their alternatives, But for them, they possess enough rationality to collect information on their subject options and consider the possible costs and benefits of their actions before making a decision on what to do
The utility of a crime may be greater than that of not committing a crime. This may be because the expected costs are less than not committing the offense. The rational choice model presumes that the alternative that is promising lesser costs and maximum benefits is likely to be the best option.
References
Cornish, D. B., & Clarke, R. V. (Eds.). (2014). The Reasoning Criminal: Rational choice perspectives on offending. Transaction Publishers.
Apel, R. (2013). Sanctions, perceptions, and crime: Implications for criminal deterrence. Journal of quantitative criminology, 29(1), 67-101.
