Crime and Everyday Life essay 
The increasing crime rate in the modern society is a serious public concern threatening people’s security on a daily basis and preventing them from the normal and productive life and activity. People try finding ways to prevent crimes and minimize criminal activity on a regular basis promoting the safer and more productive community. The ideas expressed in the book “Crime and Everyday Life” might be used to devise victimization prevention strategies creating a better and safer community inspiring much confidence and security on the part of people living there. In fact, the author did not only cast light on the nature of crime and certain crime prevention techniques but also on the personality of the criminal and his/her perception in the real life. While understanding the common characteristics of criminals and the offender decision making process it will be easier to prevent crimes decreasing the crime rate in society.
The author discussed nine common fallacies linked to the public perception of crime in the modern society, and the proper awareness on these false perceptions will help identifying the criminal activity and prevent crimes in the future. Two most interesting and important fallacies identified by the authors included ‘the not-me fallacy’ and ‘the innocent-youth fallacy’ mostly based on people’s false perceptions of criminals and the surrounding reality. Felson & Santos stated that “the not-me fallacy was based on the false image of crime and criminals forcing people to think that they were good and could never do a crime”. Besides, this fallacy might be also associated with people being victims of crime, as the majority of individuals view crime as something associated with other people but not with them or their family, however, everybody may become a victim of some crime not depending on their age, social status, or other characteristics.
The innocent-youth fallacy is also widely experienced in the modern society, as the majority of individuals associate crimes with adults rather than with adolescents or young individuals, and this is a false fact involving more young adults into the criminal activity since nobody considers them criminals. The role of the media is very important in this connection, since people believe in everything portrayed and discussed in the news or shown on TV. Thus, if the media showed the real-time statistics and described not only middle-aged but also young offenders this might help changing the public perception of crime becoming more cautious on people surrounding them and not relying easily on young adults. Felson & Santos stated that “the innocent-youth fallacy is based on the belief that being young means being innocent, though criminal activity accelerates quickly in teenage years, peaks in the late teens or early twenties, and declines as youth fades”.
The increasing number of young offenders in the modern society makes the community to initiate the greater number of sentencing alternatives and principles of the judicial process preventing similar acts in the future. Teen courts become widely popular in the modern society, and the main goal of these courts is to reduce the number of criminal acts on the part of young criminals and to prevent youths from further intervention in antisocial and criminal behavior. School crimes are also quite common among young individuals, and various administrative interventions might help to prevent such delinquent behaviors in the future. Students and educators should feel safe and secure in the educational setting, and school crime and vandalism surely prevent people from the feelings of safety, stability and security decreasing their productivity and success. Young adults involves into criminal activities should receive the proper punishment for their actions sharing much responsibility for their mistakes and poor choices.
Small and large theft cases emerge each day among students and administration staff. Vandalism is also on the rise, as students break their peers’ lockers to steal items, including money and stationery. People living in the modern society follow the innocent-youth fallacy regularly promoting youngster’s criminal behavior and not preventing them from such acts applying proper punishment and administrative interventions on them. Student misconduct and violence is increasing annually, and students involved into such cases become younger every year. Thus, parents, educators, and the community are highly concerned with these issues resolving the problem not only on the local but also on the national level promoting the higher quality of education and increasing safety of students on a daily basis. Prior to punishing students for school violence, it is important to understand the driving forces leading them to such behavior, such as domestic violence and abuse, poverty resulting in anger and discontent with life, discrimination, and so on.
However, young individuals are not always victims as they may also be offenders causing much harm and behaving aggressively towards people surrounding them on a regular basis. The proper awareness on crime decisions and causes of crimes will also help preventing crimes in society identifying the basic problems of criminals and providing the needed assistance helping them to escape illegal acts. Felson & Santos stated that “opportunity is a root cause of crime, as everyday life tempts and impairs potential offenders influencing their decisions about crime”. The increasing gap between wealthy and poor individuals, as well as the continuous portrayal of expensive goods and luxury resorts in the media increases people’s attraction to these things, and criminal activity offers many opportunities to get money quickly helping people to get involved into another world below the poverty line.
The changing nature of people’s life and activity, as well as the increasing use of the new technologies and innovations changes the nature of crime and the course of the criminal activity. Thus, in order to prevent crimes and decrease the number of victims in the modern society it is important to understand those changes and new opportunities for crimes increasing the level of cyber security and other issues. Situational crime prevention should occupy a proper place in the modern society. Situational crime prevention helps to decrease the number of crimes in the modern society, as well as to reduce the incidence of such crimes in society. Crime prevention is in general an important activity helping to save the community from future crimes and to make the life of people safer. In fact, situational crime prevention was based on the idea that crimes might be prevented through decreased opportunities for crimes in the community. Felson & Santos identified three inexpensive means to reduce crime according to situational crime prevention, such as “design safe settings, organize effective procedures, and develop secure products, for example, making cars, radios, and other products more difficult to steal or abuse”. Besides, each individual should try to prevent crimes in the community organizing seminars and forums in schools, hospitals and other institutions. The combination of efforts will help to achieve positive outcomes and results in the future and prevent crimes among individuals, so, people living in the modern society should be properly aware of the nature of crime escaping common fallacies on the criminal behavior and activity. While analyzing the nature of the crime, the researchers focus on the nature of the environment and the existing opportunities for all individuals. Situational crime prevention theory usually generalizes crimes not paying particular attention to some category of crimes. However, people should consider factors increasing crime rate escaping them in the future and limiting harm in the field.
Crime prevention is serious and important concern in the modern society, especially due to the increasing number of crimes, and people should be properly aware of the causes of crimes and the offender decision-making process identifying potential criminals and decreasing crime rate in the modern society. People should remember that one crime may easily lead to another one, especially if people got benefits they wanted and it turned out to be unnoticed giving some kind of power and control over the situation to those individuals. Different kinds of crimes bring much harm to the community and people living there, and early prevention strategies will help reducing the potential harm and inspire much confidence and security on the part of ordinary people living in the community. The world is changing developing new and innovative practices and strategies for crime prevention and the higher level of security on the part of individuals living in the modern society.
Felson & Santos stated that “technology alters crime niches by changing crime targets themselves, how easily one can get to them, or how readily they can be attacked or protected”. People now live in a highly computerized and digital world depending on the Internet and computers greatly, but they should be aware of the potential threat posed by those technologies being able to escape cyber crimes. People commit crimes mostly for material values, such as money, valuable property but also trying to gain authority and respect in the community and so on. However, people should always think about the future punishment and corrections depending on the seriousness of the criminal behavior. The majority of criminals consider crime as the only possible way out from this or that life situation, but fortunately, there are many legal ways to combat problems not harming the community and people residing beside them.
