One Year in a Life of Crime Essay

There are m any(prenominal) a nonher(prenominal) contributing factors that seat lead to living a life of crime, totally unaware of how self-satisfying actions nooky negatively fork out-to doe with the people roughly you. The verbalize HBOs America Underc e preciseplace One Year in a Life of Crime, is a perfect eccentric of how thither can be many factors that will lead you d let a path of self destruction. But in the end it is the relationships we have with our parents, family and takeoff rockets that in the end shape the type of person we are and affect the decisions that we make.A contributing factor is something that is partly responsible for a development or something that lead to the piddle of something else. If we can identify the contributing factors to an undesirable situation that we may be in, then we can learn to avoid them in the future. Or we can heretofore learn from other peoples mistakes. The show One Year in a Life of Crime could be very beneficial for a younger audience to identify contributing factors that lead you d own the wrong path in life. Maybe if the thieves in the show could have viewed something like this at an earlier time in their life, things might have turned out different for them.Rationalizing and wishful thinking is a contributing factor that prevents the thieves from thinking realistically about their future. Rationalization, also known as making excuses, is a way to devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for wizs behavior. To not verify verity for what is it. We all do this from time to time but the individuals in the show seem to rationalizing everything as a way to skilfulify the bad choices they have made. glom rationalizes his stealing in the scene where we meet his pay off for the first time. Robs start out Ed works all week long and sightly now brings home $80, which Rob describes as peanuts. To survive, you have to make extra bills, is one way Rob justifies his stealing. In his mind, if he didnt steal, his family couldnt survive. In many scenes we hear Rob wishing for this and wishing for that.I wish for a big business so I can make a billion dollars and if unless I could get some money together to buy hot dog truck. Rob is unwilling to work hard to achieve any of his goals. Fred, who is Robs mentor in regards to shoplifting, is even worse when it comes to rationalizing hes behavior. He cant believe his old lady odd with their runty girl after he promised to stop acquire high but then couldnt follow by means of with his promise. He tells an old friend he wants to stop doing drugs and stealing but its just too much for him to handle now that his old lady has left him. Rationalizing helps them justify their own lazy attitude towards hard work and making an honest living.The prevailing attitude towards stealing instead of working is another contributing factor that keeps the thieves from getting ahead in life. Easy money for little effort, such as shop-lifting, can be very attractive to some people and they will contract this life style. But the way life works is the more you put into something the more you will get out. If youre willing to work hard and not give up, there is a good chance you will be successful in whatever you choose to do. When we look at Rob we can see he is always looking for easy money.Rob cant believe his father works for such little money when there are other ways to make a living. He thinks his father is foolish. When Rob was working for a neighborhood mechanic he had saved over a thousand dollars but thought the job wasnt paying enough. In his mind, the amount of time and work he needed to put-in, didnt get even the pay he was receiving. Stealing is easier and doesnt require a full days work. Its hard to say no to easy money when there is only a small chance of getting caught and if you do get caught, then the punishment is light or non-existent.When a city does not have the resources to deal with a large volume o f crime, the justice system can seem like a revolving door for the criminals. If the smaller criminals have to be overlooked because the system is swamped with major crimes, then the threat of jail time for shoplifting looses its power. Time after time we see both Fred do little jail time for his crimes. The first time me meet Fred, hes accidentally been released from jail after only doing 60 days of a one year sentence. Hes been out of jail for one day and hes already back to shoplifting. Four months later Fred is arrested for Grand stealing and Vehicular Homicide.He uses an alias along with a phony I.D. to hide his extensive criminal record and ends up out of jail in just three weeks after plea-bargaining down to minor charges as a first offender. Fred was responsible for the death of someone and because of an overwhelmed justice system he is effectuate free. After you get away with something like this how much of a deterrent is the law when it comes to shoplifting? Not much to Fred because just three months later hes arrested for stealing silverware and end up in jail for six months. Of course each time we see the thieves stealing they are always with a friend, an accomplice, someone who thinks and acts the same way they do.Enabling is a larger contributing factor as to why our thieves live the life that they do. An enabler is a person who, through their actions, allows someone else to behave in a destructive way. Enabling/reinforcing negative behavior by lying, ignoring or covering up for someone not only allows negative behavior to continue but also slows down the process of learning to be responsible for the consequences of their actions. The most common example in the show is the relationship the thieves have with each other. Rob is mentored by Fred in the ways of shoplifting and along with their friend microphone, reinforces their life style as being just and the only way they can survive in the world. Robs wife Angela is the perfect example of an en abler. Throughout the year that the show takes place we see Angela enabling Rob to continuing stealing.All she wants is for Rob to marry her and if stealing is the only way for Rob to make money, then she will support whatever decisions he makes. At the end of the show we see Rob has become a drug addict and Angela is still with him even though she hates what Rob is doing to himself. She would sooner say nothing then confront him. Its a lot less work being an enabler then it is confronting Rob and trying to help him. Mikes mother is another example of how enabling has a negative impact on learning to be responsible for ones own actions. She bails Mike out of jail and losses the bail money because her son takes off. Im guess here, but I would bet she knows where he is privacy out and her only reaction is to be indifferent to Mike decision which just cost her $750. The relationships we have with our friends and family play a strong role on how we think and the decision we make.The mo st important contributing factor as to why the thieves are in their situation has to do with how they were raised. The values they were taught and relationship they have with their parents. We can see Rob is in a pattern of self-destructive behavior and one of the biggest influences is his father. From the show we find out that Robs father is an alcoholic, would hit him and also throw out Robs toys. Rob even describes a scene where his father rips apart one of his favorite toys, a stuffed bunny rabbit. Here we can see why Rob might think it is ok steal. He learned from his father that if you are strong or smart enough to impose your will on someone then it is ok to take what you want. In Robs eyes this is how the world works. This is what his father did to him so he is repeating the same behavior when he shop-lifts. We can only guess at the relationship Fred has with his parents but we know that one of his uncles was a drug addict and Fred witness his uncle taking drugs. Its a good possibility Freds family didnt discourage drug use or make grow him in regards to the negative impact drugs will have on your life.From the time we are born we start to soak in our environment. We start to learn from everything around us. How we act socially mainly comes from the observations and interactions we have with our parents. We learn how to speak, how to ask for things and how to interact with others. When we are children the most important relationship we will have is with our parents and this can greatly affect our adolescences and adulthood. Our role models in life can help shape who we will become. If we see from our parents that hard work and following the rules doesnt get you very far then we might have an attitude that working hard isnt the way to go. Without good role models the odd are stacked against us and some individuals will take the easy road of a thieves life style. We can change our behavior later in life but it can be a difficult process and most people are not even aware that a change is needed.