The Crime and Deviant

Crime and Deviant
Name
Institution
Crime and Deviant
Introduction
Crime and deviance are common social problems, not only in the U.S, but also in other parts of the world. They affect many people in the society both old and young without gender preferences though they are believed to have a higher prevalence rate among the male. Crime is a behavior entailing the breaking of laws of a society, while deviance encompasses of behaviors that differ from societal norms and values. According to studies, majority of deviance behaviors lead to crime (Stegnii & Kurbatova, 2013). In the U.S, California is one of the most crime-affected regions in the country. The crime is associated with behaviors such as murder, rape, violation of property rights, drug related crimes and violence among others. The criminal acts result to various negatives effects to the individuals involved, for instance, loss of life, property, imprisonments and many more. The causes of such criminal and deviance behaviours are linked to various factors in the society. Despite their high prevalence, crime and deviance can still be prevented or addressed with the adoption of appropriate measures. To understand the issue of crime and deviant in California, it is necessary to define the issue and its challenges, its causes, relevant statistics and further look at how to mitigate the problems.
A Brief Explanation of the Chosen Topical Area
Although crime in California has substantially reduced over the years, the crime rate in the region is still high. Today, the murder rate in the region stands at 4.6 killings for every 100,000 persons (Thompson, 2007). Violent crime is 397 per 100,000 persons. With such statistics in place, it is evident that the region is still unsafe for the people living in the area. California is one of the states in the U.S with the biggest prison populations, which has raised much concerns over the issue of crime in the area. The high crime rate in California has been contributed by the high unemployment rate in the region among the youth, and deviance among teens. Deviance is promulgated by unfavorable social structures and other casual factors affecting individuals at both household level and community level. The crime and deviant issues in California have persisted for many years with the remedies applied failing to solve the situation.
The Problems and Challenges That Exist In Crime and Criminology, and the Historical Issues That Have Contributed To the Problems and Challenges
In criminal justice, most of the policy-making entailing curbing or reducing crime is based on criminological theory. Sometimes the persons involved in making the policies to curb crime are not fully aware about the theory and this causes majority of crime reducing policies to fail (Perc, Donnay, & Helbing, 2012). The major challenges that exist in criminology include ignorance, misinterpretation, and partial implementation of criminological theory. Such challenges results to, many problems such as over criminalization and under criminalization, which contribute to crimes and deviances in the society. Historically, crime and deviance behavior have been attributed to societal structures such as schools, family, politics and media that tend to inf...