Criminology
Introduction
There are numerous cases or notorious crimes that are facing the world each and every new day. However, justice must be served to the affected people by punishing those responsible for committing these crimes. In order to be able to be able to get to the root cause of these crimes and so as to catch these violators of crime, some professionals are tasked with the responsibility of getting them. the criminologist are professionals with the role of collection of data and analyzing it so as to find out the rationale behind which the crime was committed and to determine the ways to be used to deter and control further criminal activities. Therefore this paper will major it’s argument on one of the case study of Michael Devlin and its background, the theory behind this case and how it relates to the case study and a final summary of the entire paper.
Case study
Michael Devlin was born in 1965 and was raised and lived in Webster in Missouri with his parents and siblings. In the year 2007, Devlin was taken into custody where he was charged with the crime of kidnapping a thirteen years child William Benjamin who had gone missing for four days. It is in the process of this discovery that the law enforcement administrators found another boy, Shawn Hornbeck who had gone missing for four years. The last time he was seen was while he was riding a bike in October 2002 and since then he was never heard of not until he was rescued from the hands of Devlin. The discovery of the two boys was aided by the finding of a white truck a pickup model which was a match of what was described as the vehicle that was involved in the 2002 kidnapping (Sauerwein 2008).
They were however there to give out an unrelated warrant and it was when they discovered the pickup in the parking lot. Over those years Devlin stayed with Shawn, he presented him as his own son. According to him, he stated clearly that he did not have any plan against Shawn after abducting him but after one month that’s when he decided to kill the boy but the boy begged for his life in exchange for silence and this made the boy powerless and kept quiet till he was rescued. Later is when he decided to kidnap another boy and that’s when he started following school buses and that’s how he was able to abduct William after he alighted from the school bus (Sauerwein 2008). Devlin sexually abused the boys and even had made pornographic tapes of Shawn and also took him across the state lines where he engaged in sex acts. Devlin was therefore charged for attempted murder against Shawn, kidnapping of the two boys, making pornographic materials from the boy and sexual harassment.
Power control theory
The theory was originally established by John Hagan as it aims at explaining criminal behaviors. The deduction is that the being of power and lack of control results to criminal behaviors. This theory argues out that the gender distribution of criminal behavior is originates from the stratification of gender relations within the family (Hagan 2002). The theory further explains the variation of gender in relation to the rate of criminal behavior by attributing them to the level of the social or parental control activities. It goes on to argue that the type of family makeup, class and gender influences the strictness of both social and parental control which ends up setting the accepted norm for the individual children. It is this norm that in turn controls the level of criminal behaviors by the child or the individual person (Hagan 2002). This theory is somehow unique since it has its unique characteristic as it argues out that crime is not caused by low social status.
However the theory has its own limitations as it efficiently explains the common criminal behaviors of the normal youth but fails to explain on the repetitive as well as violent crimes and hence the theory is unable to detect such problems (Collett et al 2009). The theory however is not only applied in the family setup but it has been developed and extended to cover the social roles of adults. Stratified characters are characteristically associated with males and especially the ones in the authoritative levels are currently being seen often in females acquiring powerful roles. However, just like their male equivalents, their power is utilized on controlling those people in the subordinate level. This is evidenced by the increasing reports on the number of sexual harassment cases. According to Hagen, the theory involves an inclination to take risks because of lack of self control. The self control is believed to have come from the nature of parenting in the family setting (Hagan 2002). The theory focuses more on the power-control balancing which is demonstrated through two main types of families, that is the patriarchal and egalitarian family. In patriarchal family, the father is believed to be the overall command and hence he is the one who gives out orders to the rest of the family members. While in egalitarian family setting both the parents are working and hence they apply obey or command roles.
Application of the theory on the case study
Michael Devlin after kidnapping Shawn, in his attempt to kill him, as Shawn begged for his life, Devlin felt like he had the power and control over the boy. He thus decided to spare him in exchange for silence. Devlin is viewed as the commander who is in total control of Shawn who happens to be powerless and has to obey and follow all the commands of Devlin. Even when he forces him to lie of his name and of his relation with him, the boy innocently agrees to this command and agrees to go by the name Shawn Devlin ad even lied that he was his father.
The boy therefore inclines to take risk of living with his kidnapper day in day out without saying anything to anyone since he had already lost his self control. The kidnapper had total power on him to a point that he even harassed the boy and violated him but yet the boy did not escape at all for the fear of being killed. The fact that every day went by and he was not caught made him feel so powerful and in total control as everything happened in accordance to his will. This drove him to even wanting to kidnap another boy. The gender of the kidnapped children influenced the ruthlessness of the kidnapper’s control who in this sense acted as the parent. As a result this led to the accepted norm for the kidnapped children ((Hagan 2002). It is quite evident that the power and control in which Devlin had over Shawn was quite excessive. This is evidenced by the fact that Shawn had the access to computer but he did not communicate to anyone. Analyzing the case one can clearly state that the root cause of Devlin criminal behavior was the lack of self control that drove him to undertake an unlawful, ruthless and risky behavior of kidnapping Shaw where in controlling the boy he got power and was able to give commands and he gained back his self control. The feeling of being in power and also in control drove him into kidnapping another boy with an aim of gaining more power and control (Hagan 2002).
Conclusion
It is quite true that no one can really understand what the kidnapped people go through in the duration that they get to spend with the kidnappers. But one thing we can all learn from the case of Shawn and William is that the kidnapped are in most cases powerless as their kidnappers are in total control of the situation. Due to the fear of more violation by kidnappers the kidnapped tends to follow each and every command with an aim of staying alive. However with the help of criminologists and law enforcers, justice is served and such cases are controlled never to happen to anyone.
References
Collett, J. L., & Lizardo, O. (2009). A power‐control theory of gender and religiosity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 48(2), 213-231.
Hagan, J., McCarthy, B., & Foster, H. (2002). A Gendered Theory of Delinquency and Despair in the Life Course. Acta Sociologica (Taylor & Francis Ltd), 45(1), 37-46.
Sauerwein, K. (2008). Invisible chains: Shawn Hornbeck and the kidnapping case that shook the nation. Guilford, Conn: Lyons Press.
