Criminology Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Criminology - Term Paper Example The paper, on the basis of the relevant researches conducted on the similar topics, views unemployment, poverty and inequality as the basic reasons behind high homicide rate in the island. Domestic violence, lack of tolerance, class discrimination and ethno-racial hatred can also be stated the imperative reasons behind homicide in the region. The study has been conducted in the light of Marxist and Freudian perspectives, which consider class differences and sexual arousal respectively as the major factors behind committing of different crimes. The paper has also made suggestions for the quick and permanent eradication of homicide from the island. Homicide in Puerto Rico Contents Pages Abstract 3 Statement of the Problem 3 Legal Nature of Homicide 4-5 Homicide Subcategories 6-8 Homicide Statistics 8-9 Puerto Rico and Selected Metropolitan Areas Homicide Comparison 9-10 Homicide Contributing Factors 10-11 Recommendations 11 References 12 Abstract Collected in 2003, the national crime s tatistics of Puerto Rico declare homicide as one of the most dominant causes of unnatural deaths in the country. An overwhelming majority of offenders belongs to young males from 25 to 35 years of age in this Caribbean island. Consequently, the country finds the involvement of its youth in killing of the citizens in cold blood. Hence, the statistics alarm the growth of social evils like poverty, unemployment and unequal distribution of wealth and resources in the country, encouraging the desperate youth to adopt the path of destruction and turmoil for the fulfillment of their desires on the one hand, and to take revenge of social injustices and deprivations from their social establishment on the other. Statement of the Problem The researches reveal the very fact that Puerto Rico Island has turned out to be the victim of homicide in the pattern of the mainland USA, as the violence and crime rate witnessed an upward trend from late 1990s onward. Although the crime rate in the region w as lesser than that of New York and Florida even in the initial years of the new millennium, yet the same appears to be touching the dangerous point putting the social, cultural and economic activities into grave jeopardy. The present study aims to present a comparative examination of the upsurge of homicide in the region and New York by exploring the factors paving the way towards the high rate of homicide criminal activity in this unincorporated territory of the USA in order to address the actual problem on the one hand, and combat with the growing violence in the territory on the other. The Legal Nature of Homicide The notion homicide is aptly applied by the social scientists and theorists to identify the illegal murder of individuals. Homicides are those assaults intended to be fatal regardless of outcome plus those assaults that were fatal regardless of intent. (Daly & Wilson, 1988 pp. 13-14) Since homicide is a vast concept in its nature and scope, it encompasses every type of illegal and extra judicial murder, killing and manslaughter at large. Hence, the term homicide is regarded as the most nefarious offence against the very foundations of law and society, as it not only deprives a human of his life, but also leaves the family, friends and companions of the murdered in a perturbing and tormenting state of affairs subsequently. Thus, homicide and the practitioners of the same are paving the way to