I'd appreciate it if you could help me
I watched a movie called American Animals. The movie recounted a real-life incident in which students at an American university stole books on display in the university's library. The stolen books were historically valuable and expensive books, and they could earn huge sums of money if they sold the books. The film also interweaves footage of interviews with the actual people who committed the crime themselves as the story progresses, revealing their actual motives for stealing. They grew up in middle-class families and were able to attend college, so why did they turn to crime when they were not in such financial trouble? The interview with the thieves themselves, when asked about their motive for stealing, is summarized as, "I wanted to escape from my boring life.
There is a British book called "The Bastards of Hammertown," which is considered a must-read for anyone involved in education. The book is a study of why the working class is stuck in Britain's class society, and is based on interviews with the working class and field research. The following is a quote from a section of the book that discusses the motives of working class children for stealing and committing crimes.
The fact that they have an urgent need for cash anyway should not be taken lightly. But there is another distinctive element intertwined with that motivation, and it concerns the fact that "stealing" is an exciting experience, akin to fighting. Stealing is a dangerous act, one that cannot help but stir up the ego's placid microcosm. The "rule of rules," the routine of fine-tuned routines, and the restraints of pretense all disappear for a time. If we successfully pull this off, we will have outsmarted and outwitted the authorities. Even if we can only keep the feeling of "I did it" to ourselves, a strange sense of freedom arises from having paid a price that goes against the grain of social norms. If we ever get "caught" in the hands of the authorities, we can then rely on our special skills to "tell them what is and isn't true". It is also exciting and satisfying to be "narrowly evaded. Of course, it is not always possible to "get away with it. During the period of my research, two boys from Hammertown School were placed on probation for stealing a car radio. This is a miserable situation. Parents are summoned, numerous statements are made, and the progress of the trial is fraught with indescribable anxiety. The excitement of the trial is replaced by a sense of melancholy while the bureaucratic process is endlessly repeated. It is during this time that the formal world once again completely crushes the informal world.
-- Learning to Labour
So the allure of "defiance of authority" can be part of the motive for crime. And both the college students in American Animals and those who stole in England were eventually caught by authority and further deprived of their freedom.
