Juvenile Deliquency

There are many theories in criminology and I will compare and contrast two theories which are choice theory and routine activities theory. Both of these theories have motivated offenders with different intentions in mind. Choice theory is the belief that individuals choose to commit a crime for their own personal satisfaction. According to choice theory, individuals think about the benefit instead of the punishment of the crime. For an example, individuals who engage in dealing drugs are not worried about jail time, they are focused on the outcome such as money, jewelry, and cars. These individuals are motivated by some type of fantasy or the excitement they feel when committing a crime. A lot of these individuals are greedy, selfish, mean, thoughtless, and do not care who they hurt in the process of their deviance behavior. Their main concern is reaping the benefits from their criminal actions. They socialize in normal setting to camouflage any criminal behavior such as going to school or participating in park and recreational activities. By acting normal, this keeps attention away from them. Because the attention is not on them, they feel as if they have accomplished what they set out to do. No jail time and benefits from their criminal behavior are their accomplishments. They are their own victims because they have a choice to stray away from criminal activities. On the other hand, routine activity theory isn't a choice. It is the belief that crime is normal and if an opportunity to commit a crime is available, the individual will do so. In order for a crime to be committed according to routine activity theory, three things must occur. A motivated offender must be present, a suitable target, and the lack of capable guardian has to be present for a crime to be committed according to routine activity theory. A man(motivated offender) holds up a gas station(suitable target) with only a few customers, cashier, and himself (lack of capable