Problem
Here you are required to think critically about issues related to some of the theoretical perspectives we have covered in class. The issues are related to trait, structural, and rational choice/processual theories. You are required to answer to two out of the three issues presented here in a short paragraph for each of the two prompts you select to answer.
Issue I: Trait Theories
Now, it is possible for people to make their own guns using online technology. They can create the lower receiver - the part with the serial number that the government regulates - from plastic using a 3-D printer. The lower receiver is the most important part of a gun. It connects all other parts and technological savvies argue that soon lay people might possess sufficient skills to build an entire weapon using the power of computers. Here are some questions to consider.
Should (and can) the government regulate what people build - in this case, gun parts or entire weapons? Does gun production through online technology enable people with biological or psychological deficiencies (i.e., sociopaths) to become more "efficiently destructive" in their crimes?
Issue II: Structural Theories
"While in a middle-class environment, people who maintain an antisocial or impulsive personality may find the support they need to resist (or desist) the lure of antisocial activities; in the most disorganized inner-city areas of the city, everyone is susceptible to crime" (Siegel, 2013: 186).
Do people in disadvantaged neighborhoods have a different value system that renders everyone susceptible to crime? Should people in disadvantaged neighborhoods develop a different value system since they have limited access to legitimate means?
Issue III: Rational Choice/Processual Theories
How would you react when people you know commit crimes? Do you know someone who has committed a crime (if you don't, imagine how you would react)? Would you help a (best) friend get away with it?
i. Would you lie for your friend, who cheated on his/her partner, by telling the aggrieved partner s/he spent the night with you, not with his/her alleged lover?
ii. Would you "calm your raped friend down" so that she does not report to the police in order to "protect" your other best friend who raped her?