The Relation of Environment to the Prevalence of Crime Rate in a Community, Research Proposal Example

Research Question

What procures the occurrence of a crime? What motivates an individual to commit crime? And what elements introduce a person to the possibility of committing a crime? If the behavior of a person is considered by psychologists to be strongly affected by the environment that they are living in, could it be that the environment could also cause one to be motivated to commit crimes?

Background

The rising toll of crime rates around the globe often has experts questioning the possibility of creating a community that is free of such law breaking situations. In the advent of searching for the resolutions to the criminally-defined behavior of human individuals, psychologists have found out that the environment that a person grows into creates a huge impact on who he becomes. This is what is being defined in the writing of Malcolm Gladwell entitled The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime. In this writing, Gladwell presents how the environment or the community itself hones the being of a person therefore bringing up criminals even at their early ages. This research aims to confirm such claim through the use of effective references that could provide actual statistics and relative explanations to the matter.

Proposed References

To support the research establish its argument and make a distinctive indication on how the environment relates strongly to the prevalence of crime especially in urban societies. One of the references to be used is the article of Caitlin Jones from Rochester Institute of Technology entitled Genetic and Environmental Influences on Criminal Behavior. This article provides a clear distinction on how the subjects of several psychological studies prove that the community one is involved in largely affects his behavioral perception about life [hence some developing natural assumption of criminal behavior]. Another useful text is the one released by the National Institute of Justice entitled Physical Environment and Crime. Based on actual cases, this article provides an actual view on situations that prove the connection between environmental and criminality among crime-busted inmates. Through these references [and others that are still to be collected], this research aims to establish the connection between the two elements discussed namely environment and crime and how the understanding over their connection could actually be used to interfere with the rising number of crimes committed around the globe.

References:

Jones, C.M. Genetic and Environmental Influences on Criminal Behavior. Rochester Institute of Technology. http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/jones.html. (Retrieved on February 25, 2013).

National Institute of Justice. Physical Environment and Crime. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/physenv.pdf. (retrieved on February 25, 2013).

Gladwell, M. The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime.