completed essay - extremely weak

1. Is crime a rational choice? Give specific examples for your discussion.

Rational Choice Theory states that offenders seek to benefit in some way from their offending behaviors. Rational in this case means proving to be more beneficial than detrimental to the offender. In other words, the offender would see the crime as worth the risk. It is impossible to do things without thinking, even though we commonly state that we do so. Every action that we commit has a thought pattern associated with it. Rational Choice is founded on the belief that there is a right and a wrong and rationality is the ability to make things seem as right so they can be committed with “good” or rational conscience.

Crime can be considered rational when it comes to means of survival. It has been said that it is within human instinct to survive, so in certain situations there may not be any other options than to commit crime in order to survive. For example, survivors of Hurricane Katrina needed food in order to survive. They did not have the means to pay for food so they took what they needed in order to survive. The committed a crime, but in the eyes of the offender and outsiders that would be considered highly rational.

When an offender is about to commit a crime, such as a store robbery, there are often many decisions and considerations that the offender has thought about beforehand. Which store is easiest to rob? Which store has the most money in its cash register? How will I get into the store? How will I get the money away? When considering the answers to these and other questions, the offender is trying to provide a rationality for the crime that is about to be committed. The rationality of crime can not be determined without taking into account the psychological state of the offender. Their personal determination of rationality may not match up with what is considered normal and in that case the offender should be considered for psychiatric evaluation, particularly in issues in which the offender has harmed someone else or themselves.

Crime, in essence, is a rational action. Before an offender commits a crime, some sort of rationality is played through the mind and agreed upon before committing the act. Even when considering crimes of passion, a rationale is created within the mind of the offender. The label “crime of passion” simply means that emotion played a huge part in the offenders’ rationale that perhaps under other circumstance the offender would have come to a different rationale and made a different decision. All crime is rational in the eyes of the offender. The irrationality arises between the eyes of the law and the eyes of the offender while committing the act of crime.