A complex interplay of causes
Before talking about how exactly society creates criminals, it is important to first understand how it inhibits criminality. Early humans had to rely on violence to compete, defend, and sustain their pride, but society constructs an order that advertises people to stop their perpetual family grudges and vengeance and instead let the violent or the cheaters be punished by a common criminal justice system. The more trustworthy the system, the better circumstances we are in, the less criminal behaviour would be provoked because we would not need to rely on those opportunistic genes to survive. Correspondingly, if the system is unjust, crime rates escalate.
Therefore, society “creates” criminals by providing undesired conditions for survival and reproduction, with societal problems including inequality, poverty, and the lack of education. Moreover, increased crime rates due to societal problems are hard to resolve because society itself is a product of human biology, and many social issues are psychological inclinations that remained from the era of cavemen. For example, racial discrimination can be explained by the natural competing instinct with humans from other tribes. Other crimes are defined to be crimes only because it seemingly hinders the reproductive success of the species, such as homosexuality or abortion. Many social complications are more biologically determined than we think. For instance, crime rates are around 4 to 6 times higher among men than women (Herrnstein and Wilson). Social explanations propose that this is due to social expectations on boys to be tougher and more risk-taking, but where would these expectations have come from in the first place? As things go, boys are undeniably born with more physical strength.
Even so, this does not mean that social reforms are hopeless. We should always be eager to confront our natural instincts of selfishness or xenophobia, for we have the free will to choose, and we have the potential to change. As much as nature influences society, society can likewise act as an environment to plasticize the human mind. Whether it is through the advancement of public health care, government assistance of the disabled, or emphasis on compulsory education, society can always grant better environments that encourage prosocial traits and open-mindedness. In an ideal society where survival and comfort is not a concern, there would be fewer incentives for committing a crime. That is the reason we want schools to focus on collaboration instead of competition between students, and the reason we want a democratic society because only in a society where everyone has a say in the justice system can the fairness of individual survival be achieved.
To conclude, it is difficult to assign a clear list of factors to criminal behaviour because of the inseparable interplay between the environmental and biological factors in society. We must admit that much of criminal tendencies are determined by genetics and the nature of a human-based society. At the same time, these tendencies can be reduced using the knowledge we have of the mechanism of criminal behaviour. We are capable of progressing further in influential aspects of society to create an inhibitory environment, such as ensuring the fairness and reinforcement of laws, utilising education as the tool to sculpt brains into non-violence, and regulations on unhealthy media content. We might not be able to eliminate crime, but psychology gives us a guideline into how a crimeless society could be achieved.
Sources:
Herrnstein, Richard J., and James Q. Wilson. “ARE CRIMINALS MADE or BORN?” The New York Times, 4 Aug. 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/08/04/magazine/are-criminals-made-or-born.html.
by Wenmiao DP20