High on Crack Street - Movie Review Example

The paper “High on Crack Street - Lost Lives in Lowell Directed by Jon Alpert, Richard Farrell & Maryann DeLeo" is a pathetic example of a movie review on social science. "High on Crack Street" is a documentary that hit the theatres back in 1995 set in Lowell Massachusetts and directed by Richard Farrell, a former drug addict and MaryAnn Deleo. The documentary focuses on three individuals Boo Boo, Brenda and Dickey Eklund a former basketball player. The three find themselves in a difficult situation where they are drug users; they are fighting addiction characterized by rehab relapse.

Although Brenda is a prostitute gets pregnant, the baby daddy does not want to take responsibility for the pregnancy. He leaves Brenda contemplating abortion, but she cannot raise enough money for an abortion. After saving for a while, she then ends up using the money on drugs.We also learn that her parents had forced her to do an abortion at the age of 15, she then goes missing but police find her later after she had given birth. It is also clear that she had been using all through the pregnancy.

Dickey, on the other hand, destroys a promising career in drugs. He has a young son whom he tries to stay sober for, but he cannot stay sober for long. The police later arrested him on numerous counts of criminal charges, his mother with the love of a child tries to raise bail for him but it results to fight and the fifty thousand dollars required for bail fails. He is then convicted and sent to prison for 10-15 years.Boo Boo, on the other hand, is not doing so well, after Brenda's leaving his using intensifies.

He is even shooting coke, the thing gets worse for him after he testing HIV positive. Nevertheless, he uses his new predicament as a turning point. He changes and even joins an HIV awareness group; he gets a formal work as a doughnut vendor. Later he is arrested for driving without a license and he loses his job. This setback forces him to start using again, he spends the whole day using with dickey that is going away to prison. The movie ends with Boo Boo saying he is the only one left. Dickey is in prison and Brenda is gone.

The three were using because of frustrations and lack of family support after they learned they were errant children, their respective professions contributed a great deal in their using. Dickey for instance, who was a player and Brenda a prostitute are both in risky professions that call for self-control. The families and friends to are affected by this criminal activity; they go through emotional torture and financial stress. They are as many victims as the actual victims only that they do not suffer the direct consequences.

A number of theories can be used to explain criminal behavior these include psychological, sociological and biological models. Psychological models entail Freudmans, cognitive and social psycho models. They assume that an individual is a unit of study is why in the movie the offenders answer to their crimes alone and no one is responsible for their behavior. Crimes then would result from inappropriate mental processes, abnormality or dysfunctions. From the documentary, all the three characters were normal and none of them had a dysfunction they were of sound mind.

Sociological theories which are closely related to psychological ones, while the latter focuses on individual analysis, sociological analyses the factors besides owns that can affect one to have a defiant behavior. They discuss the connection between individual behavior and the society, the family and or the peer group, from the documentary all the three characters were friends and in a way, they influenced each other in engaging in the criminal activities. They analyze the changes that society is facing that can influence people to engage in criminal behavior.

Biological theories though not popular link criminal behavior to a hitch in an individual’s biological makeup, it could be because of heredity, neurotransmitter dysfunction or a serious mental abnormality. From the documentary, there is no record that links any of the characters to any biological dysfunction as they were all healthy and with a little motivation example when Boo Boo learned of his HIV status changed and even the society thought he would be reliable. Despite the documentary being set in the mid-1990s, it remains relevant to date because such behavior such as drug addiction and felonies are still with us.

Abortion has consistently been in the mainstream media for over three decades now, some countries legalize it while others do not. The behavior has quite a number of immediate and longtime effects. They include the loss of time when one wastes much time using drugs, in jail or in rehab; they get late to get a good quality education for independence. It also increases the dependency ratio. The families also are subjected to financial stress for a long time because they use a considerable amount of money in rehab and detox programs or even on bail.

Criminal behavior has no generation break it passes on from generation to the next, young children who grow up around family members or even friends who engage in such behavior need direct role models to help them shape their future and they may end up falling in the trap too. That is how on my opinion criminal behavior is passed.