December 01, 2018 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Japan and Crime
It is a well known fact that the crime rate
in Japan is far lower than those in the United States but even considering that
into account the ratio of state-employed advocates to population is strikingly
low.
According to the date compiled in the
Global Study on Homicide 2013 published in April 2014 by United Nations Office
on Drug and Crime, crime in Japan is among the lowest in the world.
Homicides and crimes related to drugs are
very minimal; what does dominate in the Japanese criminology scene are the
non-violent white-collar crimes related to modernization such as credit card
frauds and insurance frauds.
In the words of perhaps the greatest and
most influential criminologist and sociologist Edwin Sutherland who was an
American and passed away in 1950 white-collar crime is a “crime committed by a
person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.”
Sutherland is also the person who developed
the theory of differential association whose basic tenant is that criminal
behavior and delinquency are learned behaviors acquired through interaction
with others.
He insists that it is through this process
that any individual in a society acquires his values, attitudes, motivations
and techniques of criminal behavior.
For instance in a city such as Bombay any
individual posted as government officer of any rank in any department of
bureaucracy and law enforcement after continuous interacting with others is
highly likely to consider accepting bribe as routine.
Accepting grafts in lieu of not framing charges
for violations of any civil, economic or criminal wrong doings is almost
routine and many officers would justify it as greasing of economy or even
reducing the burden on the already overloaded and collapsing judiciary.
He will not only learn to take bribe using
various innovative techniques but also be able to justify it or rationalize it
using the argument of “needs”.
Sutherland argues that is this acquired criminal
behavior through differential association does not have the same and exact
effect to all individuals; meaning that the effect of this association varies in
frequency, duration, priority and most of all intensity.
Sutherland makes yet another interesting
point regarding this learned criminal behavior.
While criminal behavior does reflect the general
needs and values this does not provide the explanation for such a behavior
since the apes who do not exhibit this criminal patterns in their lives are
governed by the same general needs and values.
How correct Sutherland’s ideas are debatable
as his theory rests on the concept of Tabula rasa which is Latin for “blank
state” to some extent.
Tabula rasa is a philosophical view (and
not a scientific one) that all human babies are born with a mind that is as
clean as a blank slate with no inbuilt mental content.
It is probably the corner stone of the nature
versus nurture that obviously supports the “nurture” side of the debate.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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