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Understanding Criminal Behavior
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It is true that understanding crime in America is a complex endeavor, majority of this complexity is due to social characteristics, among them are poverty education and fear. Michael Moore’s documentary “Bowling for Columbine” touches on this subject. Throughout his documentary Moore tries to ascertain what is it about the U.S.A. that makes us more violent when compared to the rest of the world. To be able to understand crime in America, we first have to look at its society. If I look up “society” in the dictionary, what I find is this: “people working together for a common purpose; companionship.” But are we really working together for a common purpose? I think not. Is society working together with its citizens to promote a better companionship? If it was, they would have not sent Tamarla Owens’ a mother of two on an 80 mile round trip to be a part of the welfare’s “Welfare to Work Program.” Working 70 hours a week plus her commuting time to and from work left little if no time to spend with her children. After being told that she was being evicted, Tamarla left her kids with her brother while she went to work. As a result of living conditions, the six year old boy found a .32 caliber gun with which he shot his first grade classmate Kayla Rolland. Many wrote to prosecutor Arthur Busch wanting him to try Tamara’s six year old boy as an adult in the court room. “If it bleeds it leads,” stated prosecutor of Michigan Arthur Bush. And it is that same belief that the media goes by. Media uses it resources to feed fear to Americans. When ever you turn on the news 99% of the time minorities are the ones that the attention is focused on. Prosecutor Busch also believes that the network tv and local news is much more dangerous than what it is. An example that Moore shows in his documentary is the show “Cops,” police officers in that show are all white. You always see them chasing down a black guy. Whenever someone is shot or mugged, the person you always see in the news is the black man. In 1994 youthful offenders under the age of 24 made up 42-72% of arrests for violent crimes. Just like in class when we covered the profile of a typical criminal, it is always the 14-24 year old black male that you see on the news. He is either unemployed, urban and poor. Whenever you see a black man walking near you and at night, you can’t help but wonder if you are going to be attacked just as you see in the news.
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