Essay on The Other Wes Moore

The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is the book that uncovers two absolutely different stories of two people with one and the same name. However, the book does not simply conveys two absolutely different stories but it also gives implications to the application of different criminology theories to understand reasons why people do commit crimes and why they do not. The story of two men named Wes Moore can be viewed from different perspective. For instance, it is possible to view their story from traditional biological positivism perspective, according to which individual choices are the result of inherited behavior of individuals. On the other hand, it is possible to view their story from the social control perspective, which the author seems to be inclined to and according to which individuals do not become criminals because of their personal choices and values, which are, to a significant extent, determined by social influences and institutions, such as family, schools, workplaces and others. Nevertheless, whatever the theory to choose to analyze the life of both main characters of the book, the book makes it obvious that people growing up in the similar environment still can choose different paths and reach different ends, which may be antagonistic.

In fact, the book focuses on the story of two men named Wes Moore. One Wes Moore, the author of the book, by the way, is a success story, the war hero, who have made a successful political career. On the other hand, the other Wes Moore, the antagonist of the author, is the offender, who has got the life sentence. The author attempts to trace how two men with the one name growing up in the one neighborhood have made such different life choices and reached such different results in their career and life. In fact, the author does not give the direct answer to explain the difference. Instead, he refers to his personal experience and emphasizes that he made conscious personal choices of his career and his life, while choices made by the other Wes Moore are unclear. To put it more precisely, the author and the audience can only guess why the other Wes Moore has made the choices he has made.

In such a context, the position of the author is close to the Social Control theory which holds the premise that people would become offenders if not for the controls the society places on them through such institutions as family, school, churches, and others. The Social Control theory focuses on rather why people do not become criminals than on why they do become ones. Actually, the author rather also tries to explain why he has never become criminal than tries to understand why the other Wes Moore has become one.

On analyzing the two stories of two men named Wes Moore from the social control perspective, it is worth mentioning the fact that two individuals grew up in the poverty-stricken neighborhood in fatherless families. However, such coincidence is not occasional since many children in poverty-stricken neighborhoods live in fatherless families because of the high divorce rate but more frequently because of the high crime rate. As the crimes rates are high, many individuals are sent to prison, while their children grew fatherless, since male crime rates are higher than female crime rates. At first glance, the initial conditions and social environment of both individuals are similar, if not to say identical.

However, at this point, it is important to dwell upon values the two men have learned in the course of their life and which have determined their personal philosophy. In this regard, the author places emphasis on the fact that his life choices were always grounded on positive moral values and he pointed out that his choices were conscious. He did not choose the path of a criminal, although he had a lot of temptations and opportunities to become one but from the early childhood he learned the right model of behavior and his responsibility for his choices. He was aware of negative effects of becoming a criminal and he did not want to become one. Instead, from the early childhood, he was a success-oriented person, who wanted to break through the poverty and criminal environment he has been living in. As a result, due to his right personal choices, he had managed to succeed and reached positive ends in his life becoming a war hero and a successful politician.

In contrast, his counterpart, the other Wes Moore has definitely failed to succeed and to reach any positive outcomes in his life. Instead, he was apparently driven by the negative models of behavior, which he learned from his peers and social environment. He did not learn positive moral values in his childhood from his family or other meaningful people as the author of the book did. Instead, he viewed crime as a norm and his social environment just encouraged him to commit crimes. As a result, he slipped to criminal activities becoming eventually a convinced criminal, who has got the life sentence.

The Biological Positivism views the crime and criminals from a different angle. In fact, the biological positivist perspective implies that individuals commit crimes because of their inherited inclinations. Such proponents of biological positivism, as Lombroso, Eysenck, Trassler, and others stood on the ground that people are born with criminal inclinations and their social environment is irrelevant to their behavior and life choices. In such a context, the biological positivism is also applicable to the two cases discussed above.  To put it more precisely, the two men named Wes Moore could have made their choices because of their inherited inclinations.

However, the biological positivist perspective is not reliable in terms of the explanation of choices individuals make. In fact, the biological positivism can explain the life of the two main characters of the book and their choices by their inherited inclinations to criminal and non-criminal behavior but this theory does not take into consideration conscious personal choices made by individuals. For instance, the author of the book writes that he faced the temptation of committing a crime frequently. Therefore, he made his choice of not committing a crime consciously that is apparently the manifestation of self control. In this regard, the social control theory is more relevant to explain why the author of the book has not become a criminal, while his antagonist has become one.

In addition, the biological positivism cannot be fully applied to the case of the two main characters of the book because it is extremely difficult to trace their inheritance, while even a genetic analysis cannot uncover whether an individual is inclined to criminal activities or not. For instance, crime rates in the neighborhood, where the two men lived are high. Therefore, it is possible to presuppose that the risk of having an offender of offenders in the family history is quite high. Nevertheless, people still do make different choices as is the case of the two main characters of the book. Consequently, the life of the main characters and their choices cannot be fully explained from the biological positivist perspective. At any rate, such explanation gives insights toward possible reasons why the author has never a criminal, while the antagonist of the book has become one, but such explanation is quite insufficient and superficial.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the book The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore conveys the story of the author, who has become the war hero and successful politician, and the man, who has the same name but has become the offender sentenced to life sentence. The striking difference between the two men can be viewed from different perspectives and explained by different factors. For instance, the difference between them may be viewed from the biological positivist perspective, which explains the criminal inclinations of people by their inheritance. However, this perspective does not give the full and sufficient explanation of the difference between the author and his antagonist. Instead, the social control perspective which the author seems to stand on is more relevant and gives more adequate explanation of the behavior of individuals and their choices grounded on the self and social control over the behavior of individuals.