I was asked to write an essay for the US market on this subject

Can a Perfectly Normal Individual (considered ‘normal’ by our society) Commit a Serious Crime?

I believe, in the society we abide in and as far back in time immemorial, we, as ‘normal’ individuals can commit a serious crime given a set of extreme pressures and stress. But first, I would like to delve into what constitutes as ‘normal’ in today’s society.
Man is born with a variety of urges which exist to ensure the preservation and survival of himself and his species (‘family’). G. McGath (1983) stated that man is distinguished from animals by his mental facilities, i.e. thinking, rationalisation, observing, reasoning, considering and planning. Anyone who has the capacity for self-esteem on the one hand, or guilt on the other, has to be affected by his view of the moral rightness of his actions.
Normality is difficult to define, even more so than ‘abnormality’. I believe normality to be the state of ‘well-being’, see Table 1.


Self knowledge
An awareness of their own motives and feelings, and do not hide their feelings and motives from themselves

Ability to exercise voluntary control over their behaviour
Normal people feel fairly confident about their ability to control their behaviour. They, on occasions, act impulsively, but are able to restrict their sexual and aggressive urges when necessary

Self-esteem
Well-adjusted people have appreciation of their own self-worth and feel accepted by those around them


Ability to form affectionate relationships
People are able to form close and satisfying relationships with other people

Productivity
Well-adjusted people are able to channel their abilities into productive acts
Table 1: Traits of well-adjusted people

Atkinson et al (1985) believe that normal individuals are fairly realistic in appraising their reactions and capabilities and interpreting what is going on in the world and around them, unless under undue pressure and stress, i.e. the death, or perceived death of a loved one (a terminally ill parent or child, or child born with a gross disfigurement). If experiencing any of those situations, some people are capable of euthanasia or infanticide.
Trying to lead a meaningful life in today’s society isn’t always easy. Our beliefs are quite often in question in this era of change and technology. Jenkins, E believes that the word ‘normalcy’ has been avoided ever since September 11th, 2001. It has pretty much swamped ‘normality’ to express the conditions Americans long for and whose loss they grieve. And, somewhere, despite long indoctrination, ‘normalcy’ these days sounds perfectly (yes) normal.
‘Labelling’ is important, according to Giddens (1995), because it begins from the assumption that no act is intrinsically criminal. Definitions of criminality are established by the powerful through laws and their interpretation. There are, in fact, a number of acts consistently prohibited across all, mostly all, cultures, i.e. rape, murder and robbery. In times of war, killing the enemy is positively approved. We only have to look at the bombings in London, Spain, Egypt, Bali and around the world which has taken place in the name of religion.
Take, for example, an adolescent boy spending time in the company of his peers, driving too fast under the influence of alcohol/drugs, and running over/killing a pedestrian. This was an incident through over-boisterous behaviour, consumption of too much alcohol/drugs, peer pressure, inexperience and wanting an adrenaline rush in these days of ‘I want everything now’. This youth is from a respectable home and is someone who is often seen, or labelled, as a person of ‘good character’.
Young people of good character can turn to serious crime under the influence of too much pressure in society, resulting in breaking and entering, stealing a car, assault and battery, etc., but they still know at a certain level of consciousness, right from wrong.
When a person is under a perceived threat, according to Atkinson et al (1985), the body reacts, initiating a complex sequence of events. If a stressful situation continues, a different set of internal responses occurs. Whether encountering a knife-welding assailant, or discover the death/murder of a loved one, or are brutally raped, your body responds in similar ways and prepares itself to handle the emergency.
The body, under stress, has two phases: shock phase (temperature and blood pressure drop, heart rate quickens and muscles go slack), and countershock phase (body rebounds and mobilizes defences, but cannot maintain such degree of arousal for long). The body goes through four stages:
• Resistance
• Exhaustion
• Physiological
• Adaptation
Finally, you lose the ability to tolerate the burden and become exhausted by the continued demands.
Amongst all this, our moral reasoning, rationalisation, feelings of ‘normalcy’, the loss of ability to control our behaviour, self-worth and self-esteem, loss of affectionate relationships and loss of productivity and planning are very much distorted, giving way to irrational thoughts and behaviour and reasoning, which can cause people to commit a serious crime.
Conclusion
There is a strong contextual element in the occurrence of a serious crime. Whether someone engages in a criminal act or is regarded as a ‘criminal’, is influenced, in a fundamental way, by society learning and society situations people find themselves in. Individuals with ‘criminal’ traits usually termed ‘psychopathic’ may be more heavily represented among some categories of violent criminals, than among the general population. On the other hand, they are probably over-represented among those recognised as carrying out acts of extreme heroism or choosing to involve themselves in other risk-taking activities. The contexts, in which particular types of activity are seen as ‘criminal’ and punishably by law, are widely variable.
Giddens (1995) believes that situational interpretations of crime can quite easily be connected to the ‘labelling’ approach, because they clarify one feature of criminality about which the labelling theory is silent – why many people, who are in no obvious way ‘abnormal’, choose to engage in acts which they know are followed by legal sanctions.