causes of crime

• Main causes of crime

  • Economic
  • Environment
  • Psychological factors
• Economic causes


  Poverty or greed leading to wrong choices
• Environmental causes


  Difficult family background or neighbourhood, leading to problems with self-control. Addiction and crimes of passion
• Psychological causes


  Brain abnormality and problems making judgements
• Christian response to economic causes

  Christians know there will always be poor people, who should still obey the laws. Christian believers should try to help the poor so they do not have to turn to crime.
• Utilitarian response to economic causes

  Poverty might raise a moral issue about whether it is really a choice for the person to commit the crime as they are in a desperate situation, and as such is it really fair to punish them?
• Christian response to environmental causes

  Christians believe that if people ignore God and choose their own path this will lead to problems. Crime is one of these. People have free will to decide what to do and need to be responsible.
• Utilitarian response to environmental causes

  Issues raised could be around the impact of punishment – for example sentencing someone to prison will affect their ability to get a job therefore could be putting them into more poverty.
• Christian response to psychological causes

  Christians recognise that people have psychological problems. They need medical help to try to avoid committing crime. They also have free will and make choices.
• Utilitarian response to psychological causes

  There are moral issues regarding the treatment of prisoners with mental health issues and their treatment in prison and the effect that prison may have on them.
• Economic causes


  • If you have no money to buy food to feed your family, you might end up shop lifting
  • If you are living in poverty you might feel angry that there are others who have much more than you, so you might feel justified in stealing from them
  • You might be unable to see a way out of poverty other than to commit crime, e.g. if you see others making money from selling drugs, you might be tempted to do the same
  • If you are living in poverty, you could become depressed and turn to alcohol or drugs. You might then commit crime under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or commit crime to pay for them.
• Environmental causes


  • People are influenced by the society around them
  • If your friends commit crimes you might do so to fit in
  • You may also want what everyone around you has and try to be the same
  • Your family may treat you badly, so you may do the same to others. If they are violent, you may see that as normal
  • If someone has always been set a bad example it will be hard. Do you think they are as much to blame as a person who has had a loving family?
• Psychological causes


  • You may have a mental problem such as schizophrenia or psychopathy
  • This will make it harder for you than it is for others to make the right choices
  • If you do not have an emotional response to people, you will not care about hurting them
  • Some people think this means that committing a crime is not your fault. You have to decide whether you can blame someone who thinks they could not help it.