Explain the idea of the "global fallacy." Do you believe that there can be such a thing as a "general theory of crime"? Support your answer.
What will be an ideal response?
The global fallacy refers to the tendency to attempt to generalize relatively specific explanations to all types of crimes (Hagan, 1987c). Many individual theories are not invalid in themselves, but are either too globally ambitious or are interpreted as such. A perfectly appropriate theory for explaining burglary may not apply at all to inside trading, nor should it be expected to do so.
An excellent illustration of the global fallacy is the neoclassical “general theory of crime” proposed by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1987, 1989). They maintain that all crime is due to an individual’s lack of self-control and that white collar crime (defined solely as the Uniform Crime Reports’ inadequate measures of only embezzlement, fraud, and forgery) does not require any different explanation than street crime. This is a “baffling” (Reed & Yeager, 1991) disregard of elementary research findings on white collar crime, which will be discussed in Chapter 10. Do corporations, state terrorists, the Mafia, or Iran-Contra conspirators all lack self-control?
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What will be an ideal response?
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What will be an ideal response?
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What will be an ideal response?