Professional Athletes and Crime

Law and Criminality Research Essay
Professional Athletes and Crime


As Americans we love our sports. We love watching our favorite teams and athletes come out on top with a win. Often times these professional athletes take a wrong turn, ending in trouble that hurts their careers forever. Why do these athletes that have fame, fortune, and talent choose a life of crime? Their dreams have come true, but for some, the physical demands of a sport follow them off the field, their violent childhoods have influenced their crimes, and the pressure of success is too high. When professional athletes commit crimes, are their punishments too lenient?

Personal Perspective
To start, I chose this topic because sports play a huge part in my life. It seems like every week I’m hearing of a football player being suspended for drugs or another crime. I don’t understand why they can’t stay out of trouble. One major opinion I agree with is some sports stars are just plain spoiled. “Athletes are spoiled. Check. They feel entitled. Check. They believe they’re outside the rules and that even if they get in trouble they can buy their way out with a top-dollar legal defense—check and check.”(time) I think that the aggressive attitude required in sports can’t always be controlled by the player off the field, and this can lead to domestic violence which should not be accepted by any sports team. “Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.”(american bar) This behavior is completely wrong and the players need to learn how to control their anger on and off the field. If a player does result in domestic violence, they should be immediately removed from the team; this also leads to my opinion that punishments are too lenient. Aside from this, as an athlete, I understand why someone, especially a professional would take steroids to succeed in a game. When you are under pressure, and everyone expects you to...