General Theory of Crime and DelinquencyIn the article Why Criminals Offend: A General Theory of Crime and Delinquency by Robert Agnew, the author explains that many factors play a role in determining whether or not an individual will commit a crime. All of these factors are based solely on personal experiences throughout an individual's life, and an accumulation of these factors will increase the chances of a crime being committed. Factors such as negative school experiences/limited education, peer delinquency, irritability/low self-control, poor parenting practices, to name a few. Each factor is selected from the many aspects by which an individual's life can be influenced; social, environmental and family life. Agnew also highlights another factor that contributes to criminal behavior but is outside of life domains; the factor of the previous crime. I believe that this factor is not sufficiently analyzed in theories, with the exception of the labeling theory which explains that by attributing a stigma to an individual's life, his deviant behavior will only increase. We focus on the steps that lead to the crime but not on the consequences of having already committed the crime. Agnew believes that although having committed a crime increases the likelihood of future engagements, this does not always lead to further crimes, explaining that there are two factors that influence previous crimes; 1. how others react and 2. the characteristics of the individual (Agnew 2011, Pg 608). Each reaction to the crime will lead to a different outcome, for example if the offender gets away with it, the fear of getting caught slowly diminishes giving him the confidence to continue with his delinquent behaviour. This theory emphasizes the importance of individual characteristics and... the criminal behavior of the individual, assuming that every city has the same strain for every individual. According to this theory there would be no difference between the strain of an individual from Toronto compared to an individual living in Brantford. The general theory of crime also ignores the moral notion of good and bad or right and wrong. Starting from the discussion in the previous lesson we talked about what prevents us from committing murders and most of us responded that living with conscience would be very difficult after committing such an act, but this is not analyzed in this article. In conclusion, The General Theory highlights the impact that life domains have on each individual and are predictive factors of criminal and delinquent behavior. Taking aspects from many different criminological theories, the General Theory integrates each perspective and simplifies it across life domains.