Lesson video

Welcome today's citizenship lesson.

I'm Mrs. Barry and I'll be your teacher today.

We are looking at a series of lessons about what is crime.

And this is lesson two of six.

Looking at what reasons are behind criminal behaviour.

So in today's lesson, you need to make sure that you've turned off any apps or notifications that might distract you.

And make sure you're in a quiet working space that you can focus on our lesson.

Need to have brought with you, your brain, a pen or a pencil, some paper.

And when you're ready to begin, we can start our lesson.

So we're going to look at a series of things today, whilst considering why people commit crimes.

So reasons behind criminal behaviour.

We're going to start off with what makes a criminal.

What is it that identifies someone as being a criminal and why would they want to do that.

We're going to look at influence.

So how people might be influenced by different things to commit crime.

And we're going to think about types of reasons for committing crimes.

So what excuses essentially might someone give as to why they commit crimes.

And then we'll check your understanding through a variety of activities.

So for this lesson, we need to recap what is right and wrong.

And if you have done previous lessons in this unit, then you will have looked at difference between right and wrong.

But basically, at some point we have to become responsible for our own actions.

And you either become responsible when you start to become aware or some people think you're responsible when you become an adult.

And in the law, they have a very set age as to when you become responsible for yourselves.

We have to learn how to make moral decisions for ourselves using what we have learnt and our surroundings.

So it might be that you learn what to do from your teachers.

It might be that you know the law and therefore, you know to follow it.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we are criminally responsible for ourselves at the age of 10.

But in Scotland, this is from the age of 12.

And there's a slight difference between the different nations in the United Kingdom.

Because we have devolved powers, meaning that some areas have different laws than others on certain issues such as education or crime.

So it's from this age that you can be charged for a crime, but the justice system does work differently for young people than it does for adults.

So where we've spoken about adults being more responsible, having more responsibility from themselves into the system they go through if they commit a crime is different to that of the system for young people.

And so the court systems run differently, and also the penalties that are in place for wrongdoing are different too.

We have a think about what makes a criminal first of all.

So task one asks you to draw a person.

So you could draw a stick person or an outline, or you could get creative and draw a criminal.

What you think a criminal looks like.

But you should around this drawing, identify what features a criminal would have.

So there's a few questions you can bear in mind here.

How might they look? How might they behave? Who might they associate with and where might they live? So you going to pause the video, give that task a go.

Spend a good five, 10 minutes on that and get creative with it.

When you're ready, you can press play, and we'll continue with this lesson.

Now, there's an issue here.

And some of you may have thought, hang on a minute.

They're asking me to come up with what I think a criminal is like, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that is what they're definitely like.

What we have to bear in mind here is this concept of stereotyping.

So we stereotype someone, we preconceive, we prejudge what are they going to be like based on our previous ideas.

And that doesn't always mean that that is what they're going to be like.

A criminal doesn't always follow a certain set of behaviours, have a certain type of friend.

There's lots of different types of criminals and therefore their behaviours, their friends and all the other qualities they have aren't a set list.

And so we have to remember that.

There's no real answers to that question.

So you might have come up with some really great ideas here, but you must remember that not one answer can be given to what makes a criminal.

Anyone could be a criminal.

It's the circumstances around them that may influence them and their choices.

And crimes can be compared to rule breaking.

If you think about when you have broken a rule, there will have been circumstances around it that made you make the choice for you to end up breaking that rule.

For example, if you have ever spoken out of turn in a lesson, what made you do it? Was it that, well, someone spoke to me, so I returned the conversation and I spoke to them back.

Was it that you needed to ask a question and you didn't feel you could wait.

So there were lots of circumstances surrounding what we do and the decisions we make about the actions we take.

So rather than think about what makes a criminal it's better to ask this question.

Why do people commit crime? What is it that makes someone feel like they need to commit a crime or that they want to commit crime? So this time you can add to your picture, perhaps in a different colour or make a list underneath it, so you separate your ideas up.

Add to your picture, your mind map, reasons why people turn to crime.

And just think about to help you here, what reasons which people have to break rules.

'Cause remember, if you were in the lesson where we looked at what is a crime in lesson one.

When we looked at the definition of a crime, it linked us to law.

And when we looked at what laws are, there rules.

So if you think about the rules that you have to follow in school or that you have to follow at home.

Why do you break them? What are the reasons? And that might help you with this task.

So press pause.

And when you're ready to continue then press play.

So these are some of the ideas that I've come up with.

So you might have things like you're influenced.

So think about peer pressure.

Your friends might influence you to do something.

Oh, it's a good idea, if you go down to the back of that building to go and see whoever it is that they want you to go and see.

Where you're following them, and you might get into trouble 'cause you don't know what the other end is.

A lack of guidance.

If you don't know the rules.

When you start a new school for example, you might not know what the rule is and therefore you might break it.

But hopefully you learn from that and you would therefore know.

Well, even better.

If you look up the rules of your new school for example, and know before you go there what is allowed and what isn't allowed.

Unemployment, so where people don't have jobs, they won't have money.

So they might find things difficult and commit a crime to get around that.

You might just be bored.

And so if you're bored, then you might go out to find something interesting to do.

It might be that your mental health isn't as good as it could be, and that causes you to commit a crime.

It could be some ensuing gang rivalry.

So you're part of a group and you're not happy with another group of people.

So you're getting involved in some conflict there.

It might be addiction.

So people who often get addicted to alcohol or drugs, they might find that they need to source that habit by committing crime.

And it might just be ignorant.

So you think, well, I'm above that.

I don't need to follow that rule.

I don't need to follow that law.

So I'm just going to do what I want to do anyway.

So then what makes that criminal? What makes a criminal? There are lots of reasons as we've just looked at why someone might commit a crime.

And importantly here is that one of influence again.

So people are influenced by others and by their surroundings.

And some people will follow those influences, whereas others might fight against them.

And you might experience some of the reasons why some commit crime, but it does not mean you become a criminal.

So often people think, well, if you're in a background where you see crime and crime is happening, then you're more likely to commit a criminal offence.

But actually that doesn't have to be the case.

So we can look further at these reasons behind criminal behaviour.

And there are three main categories that identify why people turn to crime.

So we have social reasons, psychological reasons, and environmental.

Socially, you might think about the people around you.

For example, friends and family.

Psychologically your brain.

So things like your mental health.

And then finally environmentally.

The surroundings where you live.

For example, your home, your city, your town, for example.

So we're going to have a look at some examples for those categories.

I've put at the bottom here, a range of different examples.

And I would like you as part of task three, to identify where they fit.

I gave you some hints when I just explained those three different categories.

So when you're ready, pause the video and note down which examples would get into which category.

And when you're ready, press play and we will continue.

So here we go.

socially, unemployment.

So not having a job and poverty, would be examples of social reasons why people might commit crime.

Mental health and selfishness or greed would be psychological reasons.

It's your brain telling you what to do there.

So psychological reasons why you might commit a crime.

And then boredom, so having nothing to do, and gang culture or environmental reasons why you might commit a crime.

Hopefully you gave that a good go.

And if you didn't get the right answers, you know now which examples fit where.

So when you're ready, press pause.

Make sure you write down each of the letters, A, B, C, and D, and identify one reason at least why these people might commit a crime.

And then have a think about who might be the most likely to be a criminal and why you think that.

So you could write a sentence explaining why you believe that.

Take you about five, maybe 10 minutes.

And when you're ready, press play and we'll continue the lesson.

So well done for giving that a go.

We're going to go through each of them one by one and have a look.

The person A said, I had to leave my home at 14.

I didn't work very hard in school and didn't get many qualifications.

So in here we've got the possibility that there's a lack of parental guidance because they left home quite young and they have less qualifications from their schooling.

So it is less likely for them to get a job.

And therefore they're more likely to be unemployed.

But just because this is part of their past doesn't mean they'll be a criminal.

For example, Richard Branson dropped out of school at 16, became very successful and earned lots of money.

That doesn't mean I'm suggesting you should drop out of school, but I'm just saying that for some people things that don't go their way, things that aren't easy for them, doesn't always turn out to be a bad thing.

Person B, my parents were very loving, but we didn't have very much money when I grew up.

We used to follow my friends about and tended to copy what they did.

So we got two possibilities here from what they've said.

There's a lack of money which would cause poverty, and also influence from their friends.

For example, peer pressure.

And again, just because this is part of their past doesn't mean they're going to be a criminal.

This person's friends might have actually been a really good influence on them.

So actually what they could have influenced them to do could have been positive things.

Person C, I never got excited by anything and used to get bored.

I was always looking for an adrenaline rush.

So this person gets bored easily.

They want something to do that's fun.

And they want to do something exciting to get that adrenaline rush, such as something they know they shouldn't do.

Now again, just because that's part of their past doesn't mean in the future they're going to be a criminal.

And you don't have to commit crime for example, to get an adrenaline rush.

Lots of people go to theme parks, go on a roller coaster, they get an adrenaline rush there.

Person D said, I really struggled to make friends when I was at school.

It made me really sad.

All I wanted when I was younger was someone to notice me.

This person's quite lonely.

So they might be looking for attention in some kind of way.

And it sounds like doesn't necessarily mean that they are, but it sounds like there's a bit of depression which is to do with mental health.

And again, just because that's part of their past doesn't mean they're going to be a criminal.

But it's important to be able to recognise things like mental health and seek help rather than have it get to the point where you're looking for a negative solution to something such as committing crime.

So we've had a look at reasons behind criminal behaviour.

And I hope from this lesson, you've been able to take that you can't taint all criminals with the same brush.

So you can't say that criminals commit crime because of one reason.

There's lots of different reasons why people commit crime, but it's important to remember the influence that people might experience in their lives that impacts how they behave later on.

And it's how you react to those influences that changed your future essentially.

So you have lots of choices.

You've got to remember what the difference between right and wrong is and make those choices for yourself.

So well done for completing today's lesson, lots to think about.

And I hope you have taken something away and can explain to people why people commit crime, but also why they don't have to commit crime.

So if you've done something interesting, so you may have drawn a pretty interesting mind map in task one where we looked at a criminal, then do share your work with Oak National.

Remembering to ask your parent or carer.

And you could put that on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And that would be lovely to see some of your work.

What you need to do now is to complete the exit quiz.

Thank you for doing today's lesson.

And I look forward to teaching you a lesson in the future.