The Student Room Group

Do you ever have any sympathy for criminals?

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Original post by Birkenhead
Do you believe the fact that criminals are overwhelmingly from lower socioeconomic groups is evidence that people from poorer backgrounds more often have poor characters or that their environments are more likely to predispose them to criminal behaviour?


hmmmm just give them a damn good flogging. they can do a Sociology Degree if they feel society has short changed them.
Original post by Birkenhead
Do you believe the fact that criminals are overwhelmingly from lower socioeconomic groups is evidence that people from poorer backgrounds more often have poor characters or that their environments are more likely to predispose them to criminal behaviour?


I think it's evidence that engaging in criminal behaviour is likely to prevent you from climbing the greasy pole.
Original post by felamaslen
I think it's evidence that engaging in criminal behaviour is likely to prevent you from climbing the greasy pole.


That's silly. They have to commit the crime in the first place to be convicted for it, what causes them to commit in the first place? The point isn't that when they die in jail they were working class, but when they committed the crime in the place they were working class.

Granted, I bet middle-class people find it far easier to commit crime and get away with it.
Original post by TorpidPhil
Of course I do. It's not their fault they're mentally not all there.


Can't +1 this but would.
Original post by felamaslen
I think it's evidence that engaging in criminal behaviour is likely to prevent you from climbing the greasy pole.


How does this engage with my point? Obviously having a criminal record makes it difficult to ascend the socioeconomic order; this ignores that they wouldn't be predisposed to doing so in the first place if they had better environmental factors in their childhood and adolescence.
Original post by TorpidPhil
That's silly. They have to commit the crime in the first place to be convicted for it, what causes them to commit in the first place? The point isn't that when they die in jail they were working class, but when they committed the crime in the place they were working class.

Granted, I bet middle-class people find it far easier to commit crime and get away with it.


People don't generally become middle class by looting shops or murdering people. They do it by engaging in voluntary trade.
Reply 26
Sometimes.

Some are victims of circumstance and upbringing, would I do the same given the same environmental factors? I can't say I wouldn't.

Others, particularly criminals to which violence is habit, I can't help but feel a small amount of sympathy because they must have such awful lives. Obviously the victim deserves greater sympathy,
Original post by felamaslen
People don't generally become middle class by looting shops or murdering people. They do it by engaging in voluntary trade.


We're not asking how crime affects class, we're asking how class affects crime.
Original post by TorpidPhil
We're not asking how crime affects class, we're asking how class affects crime.


The second question leads to the first.
Original post by felamaslen
The second question leads to the first.


How?
Original post by felamaslen
People don't generally become middle class by looting shops or murdering people. They do it by engaging in voluntary trade.


This is true. It doesn't engage with the argument that people from lower socioeconomic groups account for most criminals. They grew up in them and were moulded by them, and it is sensible to conclude with all the evidence that lower socioeconomic grouping brings a host of social disadvantages and risks that these factors played a significant part in people from these backgrounds overwhelmingly comprising the residents of our prisons.

You are blaming this on the fact that criminal records make social advancement difficult while ignoring that they were already from poorer backgrounds and were moulded by them and the environmental factors poorer backgrounds are prone to.
Yes

Don't have any examples but now and again I do
Original post by lent6
If so, who?


No, because they've chosen that path and they therefore, should face the consequences. Criminals such as those who killed James Bulgar in my opinion, should have been locked up for life but instead were given sympathy due to the age they were.


Posted from TSR Mobile
It depends on the crime, and the circumstances/context of said crime.
Original post by Birkenhead
This is true. It doesn't engage with the argument that people from lower socioeconomic groups account for most criminals. They grew up in them and were moulded by them, and it is sensible to conclude with all the evidence that lower socioeconomic grouping brings a host of social disadvantages and risks that these factors played a significant part in people from these backgrounds overwhelmingly comprising the residents of our prisons.

You are blaming this on the fact that criminal records make social advancement difficult while ignoring that they were already from poorer backgrounds and were moulded by them and the environmental factors poorer backgrounds are prone to.


Well of course if you grow up within a culture of criminality, you are likely to become a criminal before you have the chance to be liberated, and so it goes round in a cycle. That's why I'm a strong supporter of good public education (well, "free" education - "public" does not necessarily mean state-run or even state-subsidised, as long as it is accessible and, above all, of good quality).
Original post by TorpidPhil
How?


If you ask how class affects crime, then you might come to the conclusion that it is not a one-way relationship.
Original post by felamaslen
Well of course if you grow up within a culture of criminality, you are likely to become a criminal before you have the chance to be liberated, and so it goes round in a cycle. That's why I'm a strong supporter of good public education (well, "free" education - "public" does not necessarily mean state-run or even state-subsidised, as long as it is accessible and, above all, of good quality).


I didn't say anything about a culture of criminality, and I don't see how education will deal with all of the risks and disadvantages of lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Original post by Birkenhead
I didn't say anything about a culture of criminality, and I don't see how education will deal with all of the risks and disadvantages of lower socioeconomic backgrounds.


Education should give people a better attitude towards life and the people around them, but then if people refuse to pull their weight, what can you do.
Depends, my uncle ran a drug empire in India which ended up with my cousin being implicated and will mostly likely result in him being locked up for 10yrs+. On the otherhand I dont feel sympathy for a family member who killed someone whilst speeding.
Original post by felamaslen
Education should give people a better attitude towards life and the people around them, but then if people refuse to pull their weight, what can you do.


Are you now suggesting that these criminals not having tried hard enough at school is enough to put the blame for their behaviour firmly at their door?

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