Based on many of the crime and victimization theories we have looked at, it makes sense that the rate of crimes committed in school would be high. There is a large number of youth (who are the most likely age group to commit crime) in a small area. As well, there is usually good motive to commit crime at school. Statistics show that the majority of victims of violent crime are attacked by someone they know. Teenagers in school, with emotions and hormones running high, will often resort to violence to solve issues. According to the CBC article “School Violence: What you should know, what you can do,” 90% of teenagers say they have witnessed some form of school violence.

Victims of bullying are also likely to lash out or turn to violence, usually against their bullies, but in some cases, against others as well (like in some school shootings). As the majority of bullying occurs at school, the people who are bullied will often feel isolated, unhappy, and unsafe at school, which could cause their mental health to be affected.

Schools also have a very high rate of drug-related crime. Youth who involve themselves in dealing drugs will often sell to other youth. Due to the high number of people this age in a school, the ease of meeting and selling increases. According to the 2009 OSDUHS Drug Use Highlights Report, 23% of Ontario students report being offered, sold, or given a drug at school, and 60% of illicit drug users are between the ages of 15 and 24. Schools are an easy target for drug dealers because there are so many possible drug-users in a small area.

Based on theories of crime and victimization, statistics about crime in schools, and articles about crime in schools, it is safe to say that school is one of the most dangerous places for young people.

Why has British Columbia consistently had high rates of police-reported drug offenses?

British Columbia has, for the past 30 years, had one of the highest rates of drug offenses in the country. In BC, Vancouver and Victoria are the cities with particularly high rates. Part of the reason for BC’s high involvement in drug related crime could be its location. The Golden Triangle refers to the land in Southeast Asia that has been the second largest producer of heroin and opium in the world (the first is Afghanistan). This makes the west coast an ideal way of shipping in products. Shipping from the east coast of Asia to the west coast of Canada cuts out land travel that would bring more risk of getting apprehended. Higher rates in big cities like Victoria and Vancouver are likely due to a higher volume of people living in the city and more people living on the streets than in smaller cities.

This story “‘Staggering amount of fentanyl’ drug bust lands Richmond man in prison” reports the arrest of a man with almost 14kg of fentanyl and analogues. His arrest was thought to have saved the lives of many by preventing the fentanyl he had from being laced into other drugs. This story relates to my theory as to why British Columbia has such a high rate in drug related offenses. The fentanyl that was seized from him was being imported from China and delivered to different mailboxes throughout the Vancouver area. British Columbia is often the place where drugs enter Canada, from there they are distributed throughout the country. This means that if the offenders are caught before the drugs can be distributed, they are caught in British Columbia, which raises the amount of drug related offenses there.

I don’t believe that there is one singular reason that people commit crimes. Rather, I agree with the integrated perspective on criminology: that a combination of biological, ecological, social, economical, and political factors work to cause crime.

The biological perspective on why crime happens, the Trait Theory, shows how criminality can be influenced by diet, allergies, and both physical and mental health. Chemical imbalances impair people’s ability to reason and make rational decisions, which can cause their impulse to commit crime to increase.

Social theories in criminology show how social structure and social learning can cause people to commit crime. Social Structure Theories establish the relationship between a person’s socioeconomic status and their tendency to commit crime. Poor people don’t have the same opportunities for success as wealthy people; this often influences them to turn to crime for a chance at success. Social Process Theories also explore the idea that society influences people to commit crimes. These theories suggest that crime is something that is learned, much like any other behaviour. Everyone has the potential to commit crime, but they are held back by their connections to society and their self-perception. When society labels people in a negative way, they cause those people to become isolated and damage their self-perception, which can influence people to become or remain criminals.

Conflict theory suggests that crime is caused by class conflict. I think that this can be true, but in a lot of cases, it is not. In my opinion, social structure theories are a much better way to describe how socioeconomic status can influence crime

Personally, I tend to agree more with the sociological theories about why crime happens. There are other factors that cause crime, but I think that our environments and the people that we learn from have the greatest impact on who we later become. When children are neglected, they grow up looking for attention or success to prove themselves in ways that they shouldn’t. When the people around us tell us that we don’t fit in, we look for other places to turn to where we will fit in, in some cases resorting to crime.

Obviously, there are biological factors to our behaviour that are beyond control, but if these are dealt with properly, the influence they will have on our criminality will decrease. In the case of people struggling with addiction, which is a mental illness, but in many cases is brought on by the environment they live in, whether they grew up with parents who were addicts, our surround themselves with friends who are addicts. Almost every mental illness can be caused by trauma or stress in our lives, they are just triggered differently in different people. I think that social factors generally have a much greater influence on crime than biological factors, and a lot of the time, psychological conditions can be brought on by living in difficult situations.

Recently, in Ontario, a young woman was the victim of an attempted robbery using a sharp object from which she suffered cuts. This was likely a crime of desperation, the unknown attacker felt they needed money as soon as possible. While the details are scarce, the motive behind this crime could be described using social theories. The attacker was probably of low socioeconomic status, and thus felt that they needed to rob and resort to other forms of crime in order to get the money and success they needed.