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Law and Crime

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Submitted By BYoung8428
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Crime is as American as credit cards, the NFL, Hollywood, and airbrushed magazine covers. However, crime has been around much longer than America has existed in the eyes of the world. The word crime is a pretty simple word to define. Yet, one crime is not the same as another crime. You cannot define theft the same as you could arson. You could not define assault the same as you could jay walking. There are many crimes that exist in society. These crimes range from almost insignificant to horrible to tragic. The same can be said for a person who breaks the law. It would be hard to call someone arrested for jay walking a criminal in the same context as someone arrested for murder. In life, there are many types of people. There are people who have never broken the law and have never had any sort of dealings with law enforcement. There are people that have broken the law and have had unfortunate dealings with law enforcement, yet those people are not criminals and just made a mistake. Then, you have the people that are true criminals. The true criminals of society are the people that hone their “talents and skills.” The true criminals of society are the ones that scheme elaborate plans to steal millions of dollars, the people that hide in the dark waiting for an innocent person to walk by so the criminal can rob them at gunpoint, the people that enjoy raping women or molesting children, and the people that kill other people out of jealousy, greed, or just plain enjoyment. Criminal stereotypes do exist in society. I believe that most people would equate a common thief as some poor, raggedy looking man or woman, perhaps strung out on drugs, and even having a black skin color. Society also has a very common opinion on child molesters. Many people see child molesters as old fat white men. That is obviously not true in all cases, but when the subject of child molestation

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