ABSTRACT
Almost everyone thinks they know why people commit crimes. Their answers may include family factors (bad parents), individual/personality factors (bad kids), peer factors (bad friends), and societal factors (bad economy/neighborhood). For hundreds of years, researchers have attempted to understand why some people choose to commit crimes. Criminology is the study of crime and
criminal motivation. It is usually a separate course in most college curriculums, and so, in this short chapter, we do not attempt to discuss all the various theories that have been proposed to answer this question. Instead, we will look at the types of theories that have been proposed and tested. Recall from the last chapter that the strongest predictors of crime are sex, age, and, to a lesser extent, race. Thus, any theory of crime should be able to explain why young men (and, for some crimes, young black men) are more likely than any other group to commit crimes (or perhaps only be arrested for them).
