Ariel's Case Analysis Paper Example

Introduction

The story on Ariel Corporan begins with his narration on what made him sell drugs and thus ends up in jail. In the audio, an interview with his mom goes on. Ariel's father left when he was a baby. He describes his mother as a protective and strict woman. Since he grew up in a lousy neighborhood, his mother tried to keep him out of trouble by having him stay at home most of the times. Although his mother's intentions are innocent and pure, Ariel feels frustrated by these curfews. He feels the need to escape this kind of life. When his mother is wed to his stepfather, things become worse for Ariel. His stepfather is abusive towards him. At one time, he thoroughly beats Ariel up in the bathtub. His mother does nothing to stop this abuse. In her opinion, she says that the father was only doing his work.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Ariel gets arrested when he was a freshman for the first time. In the juvenile facility he is sent to, he learns how to become more of a delinquent from the other delinquents. He learns where to get the drugs, where to push them, how to push them and where to stash them. Ariel meets Biggs, a drug dealer, who teaches him who to sell and not to sell to the drugs. He moves out of his home and gets his place. He later becomes a manager himself and employs a guy called Knowledge. After a while, Knowledge is shot in the neck and dies while Ariel goes to jail after confessing to a crime, he was not guilty of.

The Rational Choice Theory

This theory is based on the doctrine of classical theory. Criminal behavior is attributed to the free-thinking tendencies of the society by the rational choice theory. This mode of thinking freely is caused by a thought process that is specific to a person on personal vendettas (Hagan & Daigle, 2018). For example, Ariel chooses to become a drug dealer due to the prevailing situations in his life: his father leaving when he was a child, his mother remarrying to an abusive father and frustration he faced due to the bad neighborhood and curfews thus he turns to crime to make a world for himself. Ariel turns to crime because the gain of money overweighs the consequences, he risks in attaining it. He had made an alert assessment of the convenience of acting way he did and chose to turn to crime. Ariel is thus responsible for his criminality as he made a personal choice that was consciously evaluated.

The application of rational crime speculation by criminals in the society comes into place in the process they seek to evade pain and look for satisfaction. Criminals look for effortless ways to have amusement and discover ways of keeping themselves away from pain (Hagan & Daigle, 2018). Ariel noticed that he was earning a lot of money when he first started selling drugs and thus he continued to do so, eventually getting an apartment of his own. He did this for his pleasure, avoiding the pain of staying at home with his mother and abusive stepfather.

General Strain Theory

General strain theory holds that the occurrence of pressure or strain tends to produce emotions that are negative including depression, irritation, despair, and aggravation. These off-putting sentiments produce correction action, delinquency or crime being one possible reaction (Winfree & Abadinsky, 2016). The three types of strains include the inability to accomplish positively-valued aspirations, the loss of positively-valued incentives and the presentation of stimuli that is negatively-valued. These strains make people feel bad, and they may resort to coping through crime. People may use crime as a means to reduce or escape hurt, hunt for payback against people who have inflicted the injury or reduce the depressing emotions which result from the damage.

The disposition for crime, the cost of offense and ability of persons to engage in legal or illegal coping determines whether individuals use crime to cope with strains (Winfree & Abadinsky, 2016). Various variables influence these factors. These include Conventional support system, association with delinquent peers, social control, exposure to situations conducive to crime, and coping skills and resources. Strains that are mainly applicable to offending consist of those that have been imposed in high degrees. Parental abuse and rejection, excessive and insensitive parental punishment, residence in economically deprived neighborhoods and homelessness are conditions that fall under such type of high degree strains. General strain theory applies to Ariel's story whereby he dealt with his father departure when he was a child, the neglection he faced from his mother and the abuse his stepfather imposed on him with rebellion, in this case by selling drugs as an escape.

Differential Association Theory

When persons find their behaviors by interaction and association with others, we refer to that as a differential association. The theory suggests that criminal behavior is learned through interaction with individuals whose motives, attitudes, values, and techniques favor criminal behavior (Piquero, 2015). The differential association holds that a person decides to follow the criminal path when the sense of balance of descriptions for law-breaking exceeds law-abiding definitions. How persons gain knowledge of becoming criminals is the focus of differential association. However, the reason they become criminals is not looked into. Ariel learned how to become unlawful when he was in juvenile detention. He says in his interview, that is where he learned to "be a criminal, how to be a thug, how to be a drug dealer." After juvenile, he met Briggs who taught him who to sell and who not to sell to drugs.

Currently, Ariel lives with his girlfriend after he lost all the money and the apartment after going to jail and is a motivational speaker. Ariel repents what he did and is no longer selling drugs.

References

Hagan, F. E., & Daigle, L. E. (2018). Introduction to criminology: Theories, methods, and criminal behavior. Sage Publications.

Piquero, A. R. (Ed.). (2015). The handbook of criminological theory. John Wiley & Sons.

Winfree Jr, L. T., & Abadinsky, H. (2016). Essentials of criminological theory. Waveland Press.