Infamous Person: Mike Vick

Infamous Person: Mike Vick
Name:
Institution:
Infamous Person: Mike Vick
Criminological Theories
To offer a clear understanding of the case discussed herein, this paper discusses two theories of criminology. The first criminology theory discussed in this paper is Social Control. This illustrates the idea that people engage in criminal activities because of society’s weaknesses. In other words, Social Control theory disregards the relevance of internal forces in people that may influence their criminal behavior. The main reasoning behind this theory is to demonstrate the need of substantiating moral needs of a society, which act as grounds for overall social stability. In this respect, the society usually places restrains on social behavior of its members. Additionally, people will tend to look forward ways of realizing personal fulfillment from what seems enjoyable to them (Hirschi, & Gottfredson, 1990). Social associations with people that are crime-prone, characterizes Vick’s life. It in fact connects him to midnight basketball programs, the athlete’s life and activities does not exemplify any positivity outside the football pitch, his circle of close friends is dubious; a probable cause for his poor decision-making.
Another theory of criminology considered in this paper is Differential Association, a learning theory. According to this theory, social interaction are responsible for crime. Indeed, the absence of social organization can hardly be regarded as a source of crime as much as a person’s commonplace associations with criminal behavior patterns. It is without doubt exceedingly acceptable that some community settings encourage deviant social behavior and practices, especially in the developed world. In the case of Mike Vick, this explains his apparent arrogance as he associated with people around him. Indeed, one cannot decline to note that the athlete was exhibiting signs of inability to handle stardom, as would be expected of any mature person. More so, Vick himself referred to Newport News as "Bad Newz" but kept his associations there afloat (Hirschi, & Gottfredson, 1990).