Worst Crimes of the Century
The past century has been one of sensational crimes that have amazed many Americans. Form the Lindbergh baby to the exploits of Al Capone, to serial murderers like Ted Bundy. Crime has become a cultural phenomenon that has captured the interests of academics and the causal reader alike. To look back at the last century we can see an explosion in books on true crime and a growth in the fields of psychology, sociology, and criminology. This growth in book sales as well as academic research has shown that the crime wave of the twentieth century has caught the attention of the average citizen. How can one decide what crimes are the greatest crimes of the century? What sets these crimes apart from all the others? In a world that is controlled by the media, one simple criterion would be that a crime must cause a media frenzy. Often the frenzy is caused by either large victimization or the crime itself strikes at the very core of the American way of life. In order for a crime to be considered one of the great crimes of the century, the incident should cause a large public out cry. If the public shows concern, often the crime affects legislation and the process of policing this criterion will allow us to see if there is a long lasting eff
Travis Hirschi’s control theory fits in to the Watergate scandal very well. Attachment, commitment, belief, and involvement are the four parts of the social bond. Attachment, which is the most important part the bond, is explained to be the person’s sensitivity to other people’s feelings( Curran, Renaetti, 2000). Obviously Nixon didn’t care at all for other people’s feelings since he knew there were people breaking in to a building to steal documents that would help him get re-elected. Nixon also lied and used other peoples money to try and bribe the F.B.I (Kilian,1990). The second element of the bond is commitment. This refers to a person going through all the things they could loose in their lives that they’ve worked for compared to what they could gain (Curran, Renzetti, 2000). At one point Richard Nixon had to of thought of this and believed that what he could gain outweighed all the things he could loose. Belief is another element which asks if the person thinks they should obey the laws (Curran, Renzetti, 2000). Obviously Nixon didn’t believe he should obey the law at that time or he would have called everything off. Finally there is involvement, which says that if someone is busy in other activities, they won’t have time to commit crimes (Curran, Renzetti, 2000). But the crimes that Nixon committed weren't that time consuming because he had other people doing them for him except for all the lying. In his mind he needed to do it to help him stay in office another four years. From 3 p.m, Wednesday , April 29, 1992 through 11 p.m Monday (5 days) the reports show that at least 54 people died. There were 2, 383 injuries that needed medical attention with 228 in critical condition. There were 12,111 arrests made. There was also around 7,000 fires started . The overall estimated damages in L.A was nearly 1 billion dollars.(Charting the Hours of Chaos, 2002)
Some topics in this essay:
Oklahoma City,
Bundy Crime,
House Senate,
Las Vegas,
W0nderland Club,
Terry Nichols,
Court Appeals,
Curran Renzetti,
City Clark,
Alice Wonderland,
oklahoma city,
oklahoma city bombing,
city bombing,
law enforcement,
ottley 1995,
child pornography,
timothy mcveigh,
renzetti 2000,
los angeles,
curran renzetti,
curran renzetti 2000,
gabo 1998,
law enforcement agencies,
branch davidian compound,
timothy mcveigh terry,
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Approximate Word count = 4508
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page double spaced)
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