Reading 4

The article by Surette discussed how predator criminals are seen form subjective and objective viewpoints.  Society views are subjective because they see the world models that shape the criminals. The criminals’ views are objective because they’re based on their experiences. Society believes crime media creates predator criminal, and they don’t look at other factors. Media shows the violence of crimes, but does not address the cause, so society becomes scared and views other individuals as different.  From that fear, they want the government to take control, but the people won’t do anything because it’s not related to them. It even creates stereotypes within the society.  Another image media plays into is how police officers recruit more officers. They use crime media to create unrealistic pictures of crime.  Through history certain genres of criminals have been depicted and been seen as individualistic. I disagree with how society creates stereotypes with criminals that commit a certain crime. I feel society should consider all factors before making assumptions towards an individual.

The Rafter article discusses why criminals commit crimes. Some of the concepts are biological, environmental, abnormal, and rational choice theories. However, in each of these concepts the criminal can’t be excused or justified because they can blame the theories. One of things the article emphasizes that can be controversial is that theories may overlap. Even research has proven that media can make an individual aggressive but not a criminal.   I do agree with how crime films are made more dramatic. Some crime films make us take more consideration of how to view both crime and our life. We have to study a criminal in a certain aspect by seeing which theory can apply to them. However, it would become biased because criminals can have more than one theory to define their behaviors.

Menace II Society associates with Rafter’s theories of environmental and rational choices because Kane was around corrupted influences. In the beginning of the film it showed Watts’s riots, to show why the gang solved their problems by killing. Kane, being the main character, had more moral conscience but still committed crime to survive.  Also, the geographic location shows the issues within specific neighborhood. I would consider how police officers and law enforcement is not taken serious in that area. Instead the police officers were racist. In addition I was impacted by my own race. We tend to challenge each other for materialistic things for us to be happy.  The story was highly political, showing how they would set rules to justify their own crime. Having many riots in the neighborhood makes the society believe in the death penalty as the best solution.

“The Lovely Bones,” is a film about man who was obsessed with young children. He would plan carefully before he attacked his victims. As I watched this film many questions came to my mind, especially about the theories we covered in class regarding why he kills children. I assumed he probably was mentally ill or someone harmed him when he was a child. One thing that made him have the desire to kill was when the child paid attention to him.  He would even collect newspaper articles regarding the child he was interested in. In this film he didn’t get caught until a young teenager discovered him. I can see how environmental theory can take place in this situation because the area was a small community, and everyone took for granted that everyone who lived there were good people. I chose this story because the man committed a large number of assassinations, so the media created a more dramatic and awful picture. Even the setting was shocking because it was quiet and not populated.