Crime and Intelligence

Criminologists have debated back and forth the question, “Does a person’s IQ level really affects their probability of committing a crime and if lack of intelligence increases criminal behavior throughout a person’s life.” Some believe that IQ is a more important variable than race, social or economical class in foretelling criminal behavior. The theory of crime being linked to a person’s intelligence says that if IQ does not affect the probability of crime, it can have a chain reaction. Academic incompetence as a child is the stressor for many adult criminals; children with low IQs tend to have difficulties in school and in performing tasks that their peers can do. Criminologists believe that IQ affects future criminal behavior because many criminals do crimes out of “necessity” for example, the child who failed all his classes and struggles even further into his academic career may drop out, this person has to work for minimum wage or take the easy way out and submit to crimes like burglary, robbery and shoplifting however these criminals are more likely to get caught and sent to prison.
However one can argue that low IQ cannot determine a possible increase in chance criminal behavior because after all most crimes are rational. Many types of crimes are crimes that are carefully planned and thought out for example fraud, identity theft, non-negligent manslaughter/ voluntary murder, burglary, assault, psychopaths, cases of arson, insurance scams and the list can go on and on to a numerous amount of other crimes. To burglaries a home the burglar has to make sure he studies his target like the time the residents are and are not home, if they have an alarm system or a guard dog, is any one patrolling the area. Some criminologists argue that a person with a low IQ cannot be able to plan so well even the chance of not being caught and if the satisfaction derived from the crime is worth the risk. These examples are a product of rational thought, and to be logical and

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