Throughout the study of criminology there has been countless of theories as to why a person would commit a crime. The two main theories would have to be the biological in which criminal behavior is explained by hereditary or psychological in which someone explains criminal behavior in the terms of the enduring personality. I choose John Walker Jr. as my topic and I could not see a biological or psychological connection as to why he had committed the crimes he did. Instead, I chose a theory out of the contemporary classicism which explains criminal behavior by looking at routine activities and rational choice from my textbook Theoretical Criminology 5th edition.
In the words of Soviet KGB General Boris Aleksandrovich Solomatin, "John Walker Jr. was the most important spy ever recruited by Russia." John Walker worked for the United States Navy and served on the U.S.S. Andrew Jackson. There, John had clearance to view top-secret files and would later confess that he thought, "how much would the Soviets pay to get a copy of this." John had access to communications between Navy headquarters and every U.S. submarine in the Atlantic. As in any military service, comminations relied on the National Security Agency in fort Meade, Maryland, for codes and cryptographic machines in order to decipher transmissions.
It was here where his decided to steal a classified document. A few nights later he went to the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. and boldly he asked to see the man in charge. The officer agreed to pay John a steady salary in exchange for more classified documents. When asked why he was doing it John replied, "purely financial. I need the money." Later, his wife discovered the classified documents and John confessed he was a spy. Now that his wife knew of his spying, she could now threaten him with confronting the FBI with the classified documents. He had no other choice but to retire from the Navy and recruit Jerry Alfred Whitworth, a Navy communications officer, as a Russian spy. This way John could act as a courier between the classified documents and the K.B.G. After a few years of spying, Whitworth began to complain that he wanted more money. Worried that Whitworth might quite spying John decided to try to add his children to his spy ring. Out of his two children, John was only able to convince Michael Walker to join the Navy and steal documents. John was also able to convince his brother, a defense contractor, to steal unclassified documents for the Russians.
John Walker was conducting a "dead drop" in 1985 when FBI agents finally caught up with his 17 years of spying. John Anthony Walker Jr. and his son, Michael Lance Walker were indicted on six counts of espionage. Arthur James Walker was charged with providing classified material to his brother for the KBG. Jerry Alfred Whitworth was also charged with espionage. Today, after 15 years in prison, Michael Walker is currently serving the rest of this 25-year sentence on probation. All other members received and are now serving life sentences.
I was horrified to learn that man working for our armed forces would spy on his own country. I finally decided on two theories to explain why John Walker committed espionage. First, John had high clearance to look at classified documents which fits into routine activities explained in contemporary classicism. The theory is that in this modern world offender have increased opportunities to commit crimes because of the availability of targets and not having anyone around to spot them. No one is going to check up to see what John was doing