▶ Your Answer :
There are controversies over whether the underlying reason of crime is derived from the poor economic environment or one’s personal nature. Although there are some people who point out the human nature as the fundamental cause of crime, I would like to argue that the economic and social environment is much more critical aspect than person’s nature. Firstly, there is no doubt that both structural and individual aspect play a significant role in occurring crimes in a society. According to the structural factor, the majority of crimes in a particular society are closely connected with the lack of institutionalization and education. In other words, they believe that effort to educate citizens from early ages could minimize the social crimes. On the other hand, those who support the individual factor assert that the propensity of criminals has a similarity. For example, those who committed a tragic crime such as murder is more likely to be a sociopath than ordinary people. At first glance, the argument based on the human nature seems like persuasive, but this tends to overlook the decrease of crime rate in western countries. How do we explain this change in the developed countries represented by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom if the main cause of crime is rest on the human nature rather than an economic and social environment? Specifically, in the case of Germany, this country had suffered from the high crime rate in the developing process between 1950 and 1970. In particular, the crime rate of Eastern Germany had outweighed the Western Germany before the re-unification of Germany in 1989. From these cases, the explanation on the basis of the human nature is limited in describing the whole facets with respect to the underlying cause of crime. In conclusion, even if I could partially understand the effect of human nature in terms of committing a crime, I would like to argue that the economic and social environment is much more crucial considering the changes in various European countries. |