There are several factors that can lead to the commission of acts, and research indicates that these factors may have been present in the life of the criminal but are suppressed. These factors are evident in childhood but become manifest during the mature age. Among the factors that are present in society and can influence an individual to commit criminal activities are the following. First is child abuse and victimization: children who are abused or neglected at an early age have a high tendency of being delinquent and will tend to demonstrate criminal behavior. The environment in which individual lives will greatly impact the potentiality of an individual committing a crime. Among the societal factors that affect the individual are; childhood development, neighborhood, and social-economic factors. In the USA, the fundamental factor that affects the commission of a crime is race.
There has been researched on the relationship between marriage and the commission of a crime and if it can reduce crime at the level of an individual. Marriage is considered the basic foundation of any society, and it is in a marriage that individuals grow. Marriage has been considered to play a fundamental role in the reduction of crimes; this is because it is in the family that there is an adjustment in individual behavior which results from the social control bond that is linked with marriage; this bond is critical since it creates mutual support of interdependent systems which can restrain any criminal propensity. Marriage also reduces crime because it can regulate daily routine activities, which are the main contributors of crime; marriage helps in the obliteration of unstructured social associations and can reduce the time with which an individual can spend with peers.
Since marriage comes with a lot of obligations for the individual, it reduces the chance of an individual concentrating on unnecessary activities and also any other idle time that could have been spent with friends and deviant groups. Commitments that arise from the individuals in marriage may also result from the parenting and family-based responsibilities, which divert individuals’ mindset from the group participation in terms of idle time with the social peer group.
Gender resistance is also another factor that explains the role of individuals versus society in deterring criminal activities. Society often exerts social control, which emanates from the spouse and also the social support of individuals in the society and partners in a relationship. The family, which is the building block of the society and the institution where the individual emerges from, is instrumental in the reduction of crime by the individual; the society realizes this through the creation of social bonding, through adjustments in daily routine, and also through cognitive transformation.
It is, however, argued that marriage and society do not present a big relationship between the reduction of crime and marriage. This is due to the fact that marriage presents various challenges that may tempt the individual into participating in criminal activities. A case of unemployment and marriage is analyzed, and it has been considered a factor that could increase the chance of married men committing crimes. This is because marriage presents an opportunity for an individual to demonstrate responsibility like providing for the family, lack of money, therefore, will make the individual unable to provide for the family and hence present an individual with a lot of pressure which may lead to the individual committing crimes.
The society within which an individual grows also has a lot of influence on the individual. An individual who has been brought up in the slums, for example, will have an impact on the individual’s criminality. This is the situation where crime can be considered individual pathology.