Criminals Are Born Not Made. Comment

I disagree that criminals are born and not made. Criminals are made due to circumstances and environment that life hurls at a person. Things such as child abuse and unemployment influence a person to become a criminal.

When a person grows up in a disturbed family environment that constantly has incidences of violence in the form of child abuse to the person himself or spousal abuse to one of the person’s parents, his mind becomes clouded and influenced by such incidences. He grows up with feelings of hatred and trauma that he bottles up within him throughout his childhood. When this feeling becomes too overwhelming, it oozes out of him in the form violent behaviour and eventually crimes. This shows criminals are made and not born.

When a person grows up in an environment that crime rates are high and law enforcement is lax, it urges a person to succumb to the temptations of committing a crime. Such a living environment influences a person to commit crimes as he feels that it is easy to get away with committing crimes. Thus he becomes less afraid to commit crimes.

Media and entertainment also influence a person to become a criminal. For instance, when a person grows up continually watching movies or playing video games that portray violent behaviour and crimes, he tends to view crimes and violence as more or less a normal thing. Thus he too finds it normal to commit crimes and becomes involved in crimes, becoming a criminal. This can be seen in America with high school shooting becoming more and more common. An example would be where two students of Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students, 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others before committing suicide. Some reasons speculated for this incidence included the high levels of violent video games and movies in America.

I also agree with Jia Hao that the possession of weapons causes a person to become a criminal. When a person has possession fatal weapons such as rifles, he becomes tempted to use them to commit crimes as he gets the feeling that he possesses something of great power that can protect him from the law.

All these clearly show that it is the external factors that come into play to make a criminal and that a criminal is not born a criminal. Thus we should stop blaming the genes of the criminal for the manifestation that has been caused by the living environment. Hence more focus should be placed on changing the living environment of people to prevent future criminals rather than concentrating on just punishing the criminals.