Title: Cultural Influence On Crime | Criminal Defense Attorney | Psychology of Law And Criminal Behavior
Headings: Cultural Influence On Crime
Cultural Influence On Crime
Heat Hypothesis
Southern Culture of Violence Theory
Cross-National Comparisons: The IAT
Individualism & Collectivism | America & Japan
Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s Leading Criminal Defense Attorney
Author: Kenneth Padowitz, P.A.

Content: The IAT
Moving on toward the discussion of cross-national crime comparisons, the institutional-anomie theory (IAT) continues to receive a lot of attention; this theory attempts to explain differences in crime rates through emphasis on the way a particular culture conducts itself economically and institutionally, how the culture expects its citizens to behave, and the degree to which the culture provides opportunities for its citizens to reach those expectations. Originally used to explain nonviolent offenses such as white-collar crimes, it is now suggested to also apply to a variety of violent offenses. It can be argued that the cultural goal in the United States, seemingly more important than all others, is to achieve wealth and become successful monetarily; this is often called the “American Dream”. According to the IAT, our free market economy is responsible for the high rates of criminal behavior in the U.S. It is suggested that when the economy dominates over other social institutions, and the government does not adequately provide a legal means to achieve the desired wealth, it results in weak normative-controls over how people should conduct their lives. In other words, there is a contradiction between the messages we are given by our government. On one hand there is a strong push to be successful, and on the other we are lacking in legitimate ways to reach success, and only a small fraction of our population will ever be able to reach such a state of economic wealth. Unfortunately, encouraging entrepreneurship and individualistic ideals also leads to social inequality and higher crime. Not surprisingly, a relationship between economic inequality and higher rates of homicide has been found.