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Criminal Behaviour and Social Correlates

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What are the social correlates of criminal behavior? Discuss in detail, including definitions for the main concepts e.g., correlation, correlates, etc.

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Solution Summary

This solution explains the meaning of correlation and the social correlates of criminal behavior, including detailed descriptions of each correlate.

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1. What are the social correlates of criminal behavior? Discuss in detail, including definitions for the main concepts e.g., correlation, correlates, etc.

BACKGROUND AND DEFINITIONS

A correlate is a phenomenon that accompanies another and is related in some way to it. Correlates of crime refer, then to those phenomena that are associated with criminal activity.

Correlation refers to a relationship between at least two phenomena that are related, or occur or vary together. For example, some criminologists have claimed that delinquent behavior is correlated with physique or body type. They claim that adolescent males with an athletic, muscular body build commit more delinquent acts than those whose physique is lean and fragile.

Other criminologists have shown that crime, at least of some types, occurs more frequently in larger cities than in smaller towns and rural areas. They argue that city size and crime vary together. In other words, there is a positive correlation between the number of criminal activities and the size of the city. That is, the larger the city, the more certain types of crime occur.

However after the identification and description of a correlate of crime--a relationship--it's natural to want to know why it exists? How might this relationship be explained? What might have produced it? Criminologists are interested in these questions. Finding the correlates of crime, however, is the first step in this process.

One explanation for a ...

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