We are still not sure what causes people to commit a crime. The reason seems to be clear in cases in which a thief steals money to make a living or buy things normally unaffordable. Many thieves, when caught and interviewed, reveal that they come from poor families and have very little education. Therefore we could establish a relation between less privileged family background and low level of education. Many people used to believe that parents could teach their children the harms of wrongdoing by showing them the consequences of such action and the obligation of complying with social norms. Such method works for most children who are aware of what they are doing and what would happen from their action. But we also learn from news or other sources that many high-level officials take bribes or abuse power for their own benefit. Such people with high income and good education clearly know what they are doing and the possible consequences. Such crimes would not have happened if tendency to commit crimes could be stopped when people were young.
Moreover, we know that people tend to act for their own benefit, but we do not know if this is due to human nature or other causes such as ideas learned later in life. If it is human nature, people live in faraway places without much education would commit crimes at a higher rate than people with schooling in cities. By contrast, people in remote places are more honest and kind, and the crime rate is significantly lower than that in city. From such evidence, we could not conclude that the above assertion is true.
While we continue to explore what causes crime and how to prevent it, we need to bear in mind that it is far more complex than we normally think. Accordingly, measures for crime prevention should also be multidimensional.
To sum up, the conclusion that it is human nature to commit crime and that people’s tendency to break the law could be stopped when they are young is not well supported. People become criminals for many reasons and we should adopt more effective methods for crime prevention.
