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Why I¶m not a Criminal

Matthew Belzner

976590268

CRIM 012

Section 001
 There are many theories on crime, each explaining with different components

how factors in people¶s lives can lead them down a road of involvement in illegal

behaviors. The theories explain how crime is more objectively possible for people, as

well as more subjectively acceptable. In other words, the theories explain how easy it is

for some people to commit crimes when compared to others and whether or not a type of

criminal act will present a moral problem. Each component of this objective and

subjective availability offers a reason why an individual will turn to crime; however,

these components can also be used to explain why someone has almost never engaged in

crime. Using these components I will explain how factors in my life have strongly

influenced me not to turn down a path of criminal behavior.

First, lets start with opportunity; one of the strongest reasons why someone will

be able to commit a crime is that the opportunity to do so is presented to them. There are

two types of environments that opportunities present themselves in: learning

environments and performance environments. The opportunity to commit a crime rarely,

almost never, presented itself to me. Two common illegal acts that involve substance

abuse are underage drinking and using illegal drugs. In high school, I didn¶t go to a lot of

parties or really go out at all in general. If there were parties that involved drinking I sure

didn¶t know where to find them and even if I had wanted to go, I didn¶t have a car to get

there. I lived in a rural area so walking anywhere was out of the question and the only

two people who could drive in my house, my mom and older brother, worked almost

everyday anyway. Even when I was old enough to drive, I had a car for about 3 months

before I slipped and crashed in the snow. In high school, the opportunity to drink alcohol

underage never presented itself to me. There were no ways for me to perform the act of

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underage drinking which prevented me from even learning how to do it. After I had

joined the Marine Corps and finished all of the initial training, I got stationed in

Okinawa, Japan. While I was there many opportunities to drink underage existed, all I

had to do was seek them out, but I didn¶t due to my belief in the law, which I¶ll get to

later. Back to Japan though, the only time I ever drank underage was at a friend¶s

wedding. The alcohol was right in front of me and no one cared about underage drinking

there. Soon enough, the drinking age on base was changed from 21 to 20, so all other

times I drank alcohol since then was legal. As for illegal drugs, I didn¶t even know

where to begin to begin to find someone who even knew anyone that had illegal drugs, so

the opportunity to even try drugs wasn¶t there for me. All through high school I didn¶t

even think that drugs were something that anyone did in my high school. And after I

joined the Marine Corps, I still didn¶t know where to find drugs, but even if I did, the

threat of dishonorable discharge would have been enough to keep me from trying them.

Even now here at Penn State I have no idea where to go or who to talk to in order to find

drugs.

Illegal substance abuse also brings up another component of objective

availability, the access to criminal contacts. It¶s the same thing as not knowing where to

go; I didn¶t know who to talk to either to get involved in crime. I have never been to a

place where criminal behavior was prevalent. All of the friends I have made have always

been a lot like me and never have been involved in crime. I have never had the

opportunities or the contacts to commit crimes; the knowledge was never available for

me to learn. The only knowledge I have on crime is based a little on what I have seen in

the movies and largely based on what I have learned in this class, CRIM012. Because of

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where I grew up and because of the people I have dealt with throughout my life, crime

has never been objectively possible for me. However, objective components are not the

only factors in my life that have led me down a crime free path.

The components of whether crime is subjectively acceptable are among the

strongest reasons of why I have almost never engaged in crime. Relative deprivation, or

anomie, is one of these reasons. My childhood, and life since, has been pretty good. In

comparison to others around me, I do not feel relatively deprived, I feel like I do have,

and have had it pretty good. As a child my parents and especially my grandparents

always managed to get me the things I wanted. My brothers and I always got the toys

and games we wanted for Christmas and our birthdays, we went on plenty of fun

vacations to the beach and various other locations, and we lived in a nice house out in the

country. The only time that I felt deprived relative to others is when my parents got

divorced and my mom, my two brothers, and I had to move into a small house in the city

of Bethlehem. I missed the old house, but that didn¶t last long since three months later I

went to Marine Corps boot camp. Once in the Marine Corps I did feel like civilians had

much better lives, but I also understood that I was part of a balancing act; I would go

through a lot of hardship for four years in order to get ahead later in life and it¶s paying

off now with an almost free college education. Committing a crime certainly never

crossed my mind as a way to get ahead in life and to have it better than other people.

Especially not now, since in comparison to the average college freshman, I have a lot

more, like a vehicle, an apartment, and money coming in every month from the

government.

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 Another component explaining why I have not been involved in crime is the

notion of a normative system. Saying that I grew up in a normative system would mean

that I grew up with a set of conduct norms and beliefs about what is right and wrong. My

parents raised me to always try to do the right thing. The right thing was helping

someone if they needed it, being polite, and having integrity among other things. I knew

what was a crime and what wasn¶t, and I knew that committing crimes was against the

law. I was told what was right and wrong and what to do and what not to do and I guess I

was a pretty good kid because I listened. My parents taught me these things and also

taught me to obey the law. The idea of committing a crime never entered my head, but

even if did, I can say that without a doubt that the morals and values passed on to me

from my parents and grandparents would prevent me from engaging in that criminal act.

The Marine Corps had only reinforced the morals I had learned from my family. The

core values of the Marines are honor, courage, and commitment, three things that

although I had never really given much thought to, have actually been some of my most

important values prior to enlisting. The military has it¶s own rules and regulations and

your expected to follow them, for me, following those rules and adhering to the core

values was never a problem. I believed, and still believe, that the law represents the

morals and values of this country, and it¶s because of that belief that I hope to eventually

enter a career within some form of law enforcement. The bottom line is that criminal acts

will always present me with a moral problem and I will always oppose them.

Because of the strong normative system that I grew up in, my aspirations had

always been about doing the right thing. Aspirations is another subjective component,

they are the visions that we have of ourselves in the future; the kind of person we

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someday hope to be. That kind of person for me has always been the farthest thing from

criminal. My favorite type of fiction has always involved some form of hero who fights

the bad guys, saves the girl, and also saves the world. I wanted to be like those heroes; at

a young age it was Batman. I wanted to be like Batman, he was my first inspiration. I

liked the fact that he fought against crime and sent the bad guys to jail and that he never

gave up. All through my life I have enjoyed reading or watching something that involved

a hero doing what was right, especially once I entered high school. I wasn¶t the coolest

kid and that¶s probably because I liked Spider-Man so much then, and I wasn¶t shy about

letting everyone know that. It wasn¶t just the fact that he fought bad guys and I thought

he was cool looking like with Batman. Under the mask Batman was a rich guy that I

never thought I could be, but in the comics that I read, Spider-Man under the mask was a

lot like me. He was just a somewhat nerdy kid trying to make it through school. Yes, he

had powers, but he didn¶t ask for them and despite all the hardship in his life he managed

to end up using those powers for good and always try his hardest to do what was right.

That¶s what I wanted to be, someone that, no matter who he was, always tried to do the

right thing. Because of that, crime became dramatically less subjectively acceptable in

my mind. I still carry that kind of thinking with me even today, and because committing

a crime would be so detrimental to my aspirations, it has never even occurred to me to try

to solve a problem with a criminal act.

Two other subjective components that sort of tie in with both normative system

and aspirations are the concepts of attachment and commitment. Attachments are

interpersonal stakes in conformity, such as a marriage or children. The conventional

bonds in my life to my family have been, though they are not the main reasons, very

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strong deterrents for me not to engage in crime. Just like I never wanted to let my parents

down with my grades in school, I have never wanted to let them down in terms of my

moral standing. If I were to commit a crime, the image that I have created of myself in

their eyes would diminish greatly. I have always strived to make them proud of me, not

disappointed in me. Not only would my parents be disappointed in me, but the other

members of my family would as well. The member of my family that I would feel the

worst about disappointing is my grandfather. He has always showed me how to be a

good man and do what¶s right by others and especially my family. When my father left

my mother and stopped being a good example to me my grandfather was still there, still

letting me know what was right. Letting him down would be one of the most terrible

things I could do in my eyes. He knows my aspirations and firmly believes in me. I

don¶t think I could ever be able to prove him otherwise by engaging in any kind of

criminal act. His approval is one the most important things to me and I would never want

to lose it because of something like crime.

The other component mentioned earlier, commitments, are very similar to

attachments, but, whereas attachments are interpersonal, commitments are reputational or

economical stakes in conformity. In other words, they are your valuables and your status

symbols. My commitments are very important to me and I¶ve worked hard to get them.

The Marine Corps probably provides one the best examples. I was a good marine, I did

what was expected of me and sometimes even more and although my particular job had a

fast promotion rate, I still got promoted to sergeant very quickly in comparison to others

in my job. Once I reached that rank, a rank of a non-commissioned officer, I felt very

responsible to the new marines under my charge. I had always believed in leadership by

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example rather than forcefulness. I had a reputation to uphold as an example of a good

marine and I had to portray that image to the marines I was in charge of. I couldn¶t risk

doing something foolish like committing a crime. Not only would it send the wrong

message to my marines, but it might also make them question my leadership capabilities.

Even now I have to at least somewhat maintain a reputation as good person, because now

I¶m representing the Marine Corps outside of the military. I also hope to be involved in

law enforcement someday and if my reputation is ruined because I engaged in crime,

well, than I can probably forget all about that. Besides reputational reasons not to

commit crimes, I also have many material reasons. I¶ve been through a lot in the Marine

Corps and I have been able to save quite a bit of money. I¶ve been able to buy a nice

truck for myself, and because of the GI bill, I¶m able to live in a good apartment and go

to school almost entirely for free. If I were to commit a crime, all that could go away,

very easily if I were to go to jail or rack up a hefty fine. Not to sound materialistic, but I

like what I have now, and I don¶t want to lose it after all I¶ve gone through to get it.

Negative stereotypes, another subjective component, have played a small, but

important role in my non-criminal life. Negative stereotypes are the stigmas and negative

images associated with a certain type of behavior. My father always painted a clear

picture of what he thought of people who didn¶t have very good jobs, or barely any

education. He thought they were useless and although my mother counteracted this for

my brothers and I, part of it will always stick with me. So, if ending up a janitor for life

seems bad to me, one can only imagine what ending up a criminal seems like to me.

Besides my father, there was also television and books to help me realize just how bad it

was to be a criminal. In the cartoons I watched or the comics I read the bad guy was

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always very clearly defined. He had some sort of menacing look to him and he was

always trying to steal something, kidnap someone, or destroy some form of property. As

a kid, that¶s what I based my image of criminals on. For me, a criminal was an extremely

bad person who had no desire to do any good or try to reform and deserved no sympathy

what so ever. Of course, this was slightly altered as I began to realize what the real world

was actually like. But the image of the criminal as the bad guy is still with me and I

don¶t think it will ever go away. I don¶t like when criminals are portrayed as people with

no other option but crime, because in my opinion there is always another way.

The way I view myself, or my self-conception, another component, is one of, if

not the most important reason I have not engaged in any criminal behavior. I like to think

I¶m a stand up guy. You can depend on me and you can count on me to do what¶s right.

And no, I may not always be there when you want me to me, but I will always be there

when you need me to be. That¶s the kind of person I truly believe I am and committing a

crime would ruin that. I also like to think I¶m pretty smart, and based on what I know

about what happens to people when they head down a path of crime, I think I can safely

say that I will never engage in crime. One last component I will mention is

neutralizations. Neutralizations are pre-behavioral justifications that evade conduct

norms, negative stereotypes, and protect an individual¶s valued self-conception. It¶s

something that a person tells himself before they do something that they know they

shouldn¶t. This happens all the time in life. People are constantly justifying themselves

and I have done it plenty of times. They have all been minor occurrences, the largest one

being when I drank alcohol underage at a friend¶s wedding. I denied that there was any

injury involved. I wasn¶t hurting anyone by drinking; it actually made the night more

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fun. Not once have I ever needed to justify an action because it was a serious criminal

offense.

On top of the fact that I had nowhere to go to commit a crime early in life, I was

raised with very solid morals and have always believed in doing the right thing. Crime

has never been very objectively possible for me, although I¶m sure if I wanted to I could

commit a crime now, however, crime hasn¶t been, and never will be subjectively

acceptable to me and that¶s why I¶m not a criminal now, and I will not be in the future.

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