One of the central concerns of criminology is figuring out why people commit crimes.

Over the
years, many scientists have developed theories to try to answer this question. In fact, the number
of theories of why people commit crimes sometimes seems to equal the number of
criminologists.
AGE:
So, why exactly are young people more likely to commit crime than older people? A few factors
are at play here, including the following:
1. As any old person can tell you, the younger you are, the more energy you have. So, as people
get older, they simply don’t have the energy they once had to commit crimes.
2. Sometimes young people do dumb things that older, wiser people don’t do. In particular,
young people generally find delaying gratification or resisting temptation difficult to do. As a
result, they’re more likely to seek a quick thrill — perhaps by committing a crime — without
weighing the risks or consequences. Young people often make poor choices because they are
assuming more responsibility and freedom even as their brains are still undergoing significant
development. Recent studies have shown that an adolescent’s brain doesn’t fully mature until the
person is between 22 and 25.
3. As people get older, they’re more likely to have families, which demand more stable lifestyles.
Having a spouse and children means spending less time skateboarding with friends on the street
and more time making a living and providing for your family.
GENDER:
Which gender commits more crimes is no mystery. Between 2000-2007, 75 percent of all arrests
involved men. Men accounted for 82 percent of all violent crime arrests and 67 percent of
property crime arrests.
When a woman goes to commit a crime, chances are high that she’ll commit a property crime.
Between 2000-2007, women committed slightly more embezzlement than men and were arrested
for 44 percent of all fraud, 40 percent of all theft, and 38 percent of forgeries.
According to recent trends, women appear to be increasing their presence in the criminal
community: Between 1998 and 2007, the overall crime rate for men dropped 6 percent, but the
crime rate for women increased almost 7 percent. For example, as women gain more prominent
professional positions, they have greater opportunity to commit embezzlement,
which explains why the percent of women arrested for embezzlement increased by 30 percent
between 1998 and 2007.
To a significant degree, the differences between male and female traits are the results of
hormonal differences. For instance, men are generally physically bigger and more aggressive
than women, and they often lack certain female-attributed traits, such as compassion, empathy,
and the need to nurture — all traits that don’t easily correlate with violating someone else’s rights
through crime.

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Hormones aside, criminologists hotly debate why women commit fewer crimes than men. Some
criminologists, including those who subscribe to feminist criminological theory, contend that the
difference can be explained by how boys and girls are raised. These criminologists argue that
boys are trained to be physical, dominant, and more aggressive, while girls are rewarded for
exhibiting stereotypically feminine virtues.
PERSONAL INCOME:
To explain the difference in crime rates between lower- and higher-income areas, criminologists
have developed various theories, including the following:
Police often spend more time in poorer areas. Therefore, they’re more likely to arrest criminals in
poorer neighborhoods than affluent businessmen in big, shiny offices.
Lower-income areas often experience higher rates of drug use than more affluent areas, and drug
use correlates to higher crime rates.
The quality of schools is often lower where incomes are lower, and lower-quality education often
leads to higher crime rates.
In lower-income areas, people are often unable to land well-paying jobs, and people who don’t
spend their days working and earning money are more likely to commit crime.
People who struggle with impulse control are more likely to live in poorer neighborhoods
because they have a tougher time holding on to well-paying jobs. These same people are more
likely to commit crime, too, because poor impulse control increases the chances that someone
will commit crime.
In 1978, Charles Tittle, Wayne Villemez, and Douglas Smith conducted a significant study that
looked at self-reporting of crimes by people in different social classes. (Self-reporting means the
person who committed the crime reports on himself to the criminologist doing the study) The
study concluded that there’s little evidence that a person’s social class influences crime statistics.
However, other criminologists disagree, arguing that the study placed too great an emphasis on
low-level offenses. They argue that although rich kids may be just as likely as poor kids to be
caught drinking, shoplifting, and using drugs, lower-class neighborhoods have higher crime rates
for serious felonies than upper-class neighborhoods.
The bottom line is that criminologists haven’t been able to draw any definitive conclusions about
income as a crime-causing factor; however, living in a low-income area does seem to correlate
with higher crime rates.
Instead of looking at income levels, some studies have shifted the focus to parental control and
discipline and have concluded that these factors are much more predictive of criminality than
either income or social class. In other words, these studies point out that kids whose parents or
other guardians watch them more closely and actively discipline them are less likely to grow up
to commit serious crime, regardless of the neighborhood they live in.
RACE:

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Of all people arrested in U.S. 28 percent were African American. The overall U.S. population is
about 12 percent African American. The question of whether the disproportionate arrest rate for
African Americans the result of racial bias is an extremely sensitive one for communities, law
enforcement, and criminologists. In fact, few issues in criminology have been the subject of more
statistical studies than racism in law enforcement.
Consider the fact that African Americans had an even higher arrest rate — 39 percent — for all
serious violent offenses. Is it possible that institutionalized racism means that blacks get arrested
for serious violent crime much more often than whites? Many criminologists doubt that police
underinvestigate serious offenses, such as robberies, rapes, and murders, perpetrated by white
criminals. These criminologists contend that racial bias in the criminal justice system is no longer
highly prevalent and that the higher arrest rate just reflects a higher offense rate by African
Americans.
Profiling can certainly be a useful technique in law enforcement because it helps police
understand what kind of suspect to look for in connection with certain crimes. For example,
psychopathic murderers often have a history of juvenile delinquency, animal abuse, and fire
setting. Some criminologists believe that the amount of crime committed within any group of
people reflects certain cultural challenges. For example, roughly 68 percent of African American
children in 2005 were born to single mothers. This statistic reflects a significant, steady increase
from the mid-1960s when the rate was only about 25 percent. The absence of a second parent in a
home likely has an impact on income, educational opportunities, and the oversight and discipline
of children. Single-parent families are more likely than two-parent families to be poor and live in
higher crime areas, and, as a result, children in these families are at greater risk of joining youth
with similar backgrounds in delinquent behavior.
EDUCATION:
The more education a person has, the less likely this person is to commit a crime. But education
itself doesn’t lead a person away from a life of crime. Rather, many crucial elements often
accompany a good education, including better jobs, the chance to live in better neighborhoods
with better schools, perhaps less exposure to delinquents. Another important benefit of school is
that it offers a great opportunity for juveniles to develop social bonds. Social activities, such as
playing sports, playing in a band, or acting with a theater group, all build relationships that
correlate with lower crime rates. Kids who drop out of school, on the other hand, are less likely
to develop social bonds, at least in a noncriminal context. Dropouts still look for social
relationships, of course, but they’re more likely to develop them with other kids who are
marginalized from school. Thus, joining a gang, or just “hanging out” after school (when most
crimes are committed), becomes an attractive alternative.
RELIGION:
The hellfire hypothesis suggests that religion decreases crime because believers fear being cursed
for misbehaving. People who make the effort to attend religious services are more likely to take
seriously the teachings of their religions. And few religions advocate for the commission of
crime. Criminologists have also done studies on the differences in crime rates among religions. In

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 general, Jews had the lowest crime rate, followed by Protestants. Catholics had the highest rate
among religious affiliations. However, these distinctions have been criticized because, generally
speaking, each of these groups consists of slightly different social classes. For example, Catholics
have a higher percentage of new immigrants to the United States, as well as lower-income
minorities. With these social differences in mind, some criminologists have concluded that social
class is more meaningful in predicting criminality than which type of religion a person confesses.
TV, MUSIC, AND VIDEO GAMES:
In 2003, 24-year-old Ronell Wilson of New York City shot two undercover detectives in the
backs of their heads, killing them. When police arrested him, they found in his pants pocket the
following rap lyrics: “Leave a 45 slugs in da back of ya head. Cause I’m getting dat bread, ain’t
goin stop to I’m dead.” In 2006, a jury convicted Wilson of various counts of murder and
sentenced him to death. Was the fantasy life of gangsta rap a motivation for Wilson to kill the two
detectives? Ever since Elvis Presley first started gyrating his hips, people have complained about
the impact of pop culture on youth. But medical science didn’t begin to study whether pop
culture makes kids more violent until the mid-1970s. Recent studies have estimated that the
average child will see more than 18,000 murders and 250,000 acts of violence on TV and at the
movies before he or she graduates from high school. And this statistic doesn’t even touch the
influence of violent video games and song lyrics. What’s the effect of being exposed to violence
in pop culture? Numerous studies have shown that children, who are still developing their value
systems and learning how to solve problems, may become desensitized to violence after so much
exposure. They may also come to see violence as an appropriate way to resolve conflict, and,
perhaps as Ronell Wilson did, they may come to identify with fictional violent characters. Certain
conduct, such as shooting cops in the back of the head, may come across as cool.
BAD ECONOMY/RECESSION.
When the economy of the state goes into a recession and people lose their jobs in large numbers,
does the crime rate rise? It seems logical that unemployed people would be more likely to steal or
commit other crimes just to survive. However, the evidence doesn’t support this assertion. The
truth is that criminologists don’t know exactly what the economy’s impact on crime really is.
Here are two opposing but fairly logical theories that attempt to explain the relationship between
the economy and crime rates (note that neither theory has a lot of statistical support):
 unemployed people, especially young men, have more free time, which can lead to mischief,
criminality, or even illegal jobs, such as selling drugs.
 severe economic downturns, bring families together, which results in a decrease in crime.
Another possible connection is that higher crime rates may actually lead to higher
unemployment. For example, a 19-year-old man convicted of burglary will find it very difficult
to get a job when he finishes his sentence. The higher the crime rate in a certain area (and the
more 19-year-olds convicted of crime in that area), the more unemployed people there are. So, in
a way, high rates of school dropouts, broken families, and other causes of crime may actually hurt
the economy. One conclusion that criminologists have been able to make about economy and

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crime is that, generally (but not always), for every 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate,
the rate of burglaries goes up 2 percent.