Prison Violence

WRITING ASSIGNMENT THREE

Rational Choice Theory

Sarahi Juarez

Kaplan College

CJ102

Mr.Ducan

November 11, 2015

In the eighteen century a man by name of Cesar Beccaria came out with the idea of Rational Choice Theory. In the standard view, rational choice is defined to mean the process of determining what options are available and then choosing the most preferred one according to some consistent criterion. In a certain sense, this rational choice model is already an optimization-based approach. the rational choice theory is the product of carefully thought and planning ,meaning an offender is choosing a crime after knowing the reward of the crime it could be for thrill, pleasure ,revenge,money,entertainment. This rational choice theory comes from the roots of the classical criminology. The classical criminology is the theorical perspective suggesting that people have free will to choose criminal or enviromentional behavior.(2)people chose to commit crime for reasons for greed or personal need; and (3) crime can be controlled only by the fear of criminal sanctions.

In order to find statistics of violent crime and the trends they created two types of surveys the national crime victimization survey (NCVS) and the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The National Crime Victimization is the ongoing victimization study conducted jointly by the Justice Department and the U.S Census Bureau that surveys victims about their experiences with law violation. The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is large database, compiled by the FBI, of crimes reported and arrests made each year throughout the United States. This two surveys help recognize the most common crimes and what types of crimes are often committed. An example is theft-related crimes are the product of careful risk assessment, including environmental, social and structural factors. Criminals tend to use more rational thinking when the crime is greater.

They might use more thinking to rob a bank than they will...