How is Poverty Related to Crime?

Social inequality means inequalities in life that people may face such as employment, gender, race, education. Personally, I do think there is a link between social inequality and crime, for example if you are brought up in a lower class, you may be less inclined to get an education because of your environment and people around you. If you are unemployed and cannot seem to find employment you may lean toward crimes such as theft to be able to get what you cannot afford. These social inequalities may make you more susceptible to crime.

Memphis Tennessee statistics report an overall downward trend in crime based on data from fourteen years with violent crime increasing. In 2012 the city violent crime rate was higher than the national violent crime rate average by 352.41%. However Memphis crime rate is still high. Memphis was ranked third most dangerous city in America in 2014. The rate is steadily increasing. (neighborhoodscouts.com)

It can be looked at from either side, firstly poverty causes many to sell drugs or somehow raise funds through illegal means. On the other hand, a life of drugs, violence and lack of education can prevent any group/race of people to stay economically disadvantaged, with no pathway available to lead them to a more economically stable lifestyle. It is common knowledge that crime is more recurrent in poor areas than in nice middle class suburbs; however it’s not as simple as how rich the area is the less frequent crimes happen, there’s far more involved. Firstly if areas are considered to be rough, there will be more policing in that specific area.

Poverty fosters large crime rates. Where you find poverty, you often find crime. Urban areas are commonly known to be densely populated. High population along with the close proximity of businesses provide criminals with larger amounts of potential targets. For many impoverished people, the potential benefits of crime outweigh the risks of being caught. The pressing need for material goods, such as food, can steer people to commit crimes. Often threats and violence produce larger quantities of goods, which provokes people to commit even more violent acts. These acts are carried out primarily by people from poorer segments of the population and who are more likely to live in urban areas.

Williams assumes that crime is related to poverty but, as in the US, white communities tend to be much wealthier than communities of color, people are, one more time, induced to stretch poverty into race. Moreover, in order to sustain her point of view, she points out that statistics have proven that in areas where there are many poor whites, the crime rate is almost the same as African Americans and Latino neighborhoods.

Robert D. Crutchfield when speaking of the social class differences to explain criminal involvement in the United States in his published work “From Slavery to Social Class to Disadvantage: An Intellectual History of the Use of Class to Explain Racial Differences in Criminal Involvement” asks an important question, why do we always connect crimes with race? Crutchfield states “When race is not the focus, differences in ethnicity, religion, immigration status, or some other marker of being “the other” are part of how we think about and talk about crime” (2). Crutchfield proposes that we continually seek “out” groups to ostracize and blame crime on. Out groups when blamed for crime, it is attributed to interiority or social class. We often attribute crimes (those of property and violence) to those of different races. But if the question was reworded and was understood to include collar crimes, white people would have a huge crime rate. Crutchfield stumbles on several correlations while in this inquiry: that African Americans are more involved in kinds of crime that lead to prison sentences (compared to whites), and that people in lower social classes serve time for these offenses. As African Americans, are very abundant and overrepresented in the areas of low socioeconomic class, the fallacy usually arises that the correlation between the poor African Americans and crime is prevalent. These two sets of data however, do not create a connection. Crutchfield analyzes the effects

Another factor that plays a huge role in the murder rate is the overall poverty. Detroit’s poverty level is significantly higher than that of Minneapolis. Several added reasons to the rate are those of theft, robbery, and attempts of theft of property. Police chief, Warren Evans suggests that we will not see anymore oversights on the number of the murder rate and next year we should see a more correct and concrete number. He goes on to say that the new correct number may even show an increase to fix the oversight problem. (Oosting, 2009) There is no way to tell whether or not the poverty level is the sole or even major cause of the murder rate. While likely to be a contributing factor, poverty cannot be the entire answer to the issue. Economic trends have shown that the poverty level has not only increased in Detroit, but across our entire nation.

The relationship between Crime and less fortunate people cannot underestimated; it may just be the way the media has conditioned us to characterize what a criminal looks like and how they live their lives. There are many low income cities and crime rates widespread across America. One may say that people with low income have nothing to lose when they commit crime or depressed or desperate to the point that they will commit crimes for the profit of money. Even though crime is committed at all walks of life, one can still pose a question to know if crime is more likely to be committed by people with low income that those with high income.

contributor to crime in the United States is a young, black male living in an

Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.

Crime in this country is an everyday thing. Some people believe that crime is unnecessary. That people do it out of ignorance and that it really can be prevented. Honestly, since we live in a country where there is poverty, people living in the streets, or with people barely getting by, there will always be crime. Whether the crime is robbing food, money, or even hurting the people you love, your family. You will soon read about how being a criminal starts or even stops, where it begins, with whom it begins with and why crime seems to be the only way out sometimes for the poor.

A violent crime occurs every 23.5 seconds in the United States of America. Even though crime has been at a low during the past decade, violence is still prevalent in today’s society. Most of these crimes happen in places that are socio-economically disadvantaged. There then is the debate of whether violent crime is associated with environments struck with poverty. There is a correlation between violent crimes and poverty because of the unemployment rates in major cities, the culture of poor areas, and drugs.

Poverty and the relationship it has to crime is a long standing sociological, humanists and historical phenomenon. From the plight of the third world to the violence soaked inner city streets of the 1980’s, the relationship of crime and poverty has been the source of a great deal of social commentary. In societies throughout the world and throughout history there has always been a traditional measure of deviance through relative income gaps. Both poverty and crime as well as their connections are heavily weighed topics of political and social discourse. Opinions in these areas contain a great deal of variance. The prejudices of the old guard from the professional police era still utilize association with poverty as a measuring stick for social deviance. Meanwhile, intelligent social science continues to give insight to factors such as social disorganization, socialization into violence, as well as, the far reaching impact political, economic and justice based policies have on those in poverty.

The effects of crime on victim can have a mixed feeling about making a victim impact statement. They may want to tell the judge or parole hearing officer how the crime affected their life and yet they may be anxious because you don't know how to prepare an impact statement or you don't want to bring back bad memories by describing how the crime has hurt you. The victim impact statements may include descriptions of:

Although most people look at poverty and crime as two different social problems, they are interconnected in our society. Wheelock and Uggen (2006) made five core arguments in the article Race, poverty, and punishment: The impact of criminal sanctions on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequality. This article discusses how crime, poverty, and punishment are all connected. Understanding each of the five core arguments allows someone to grasp how this interconnection of social problems affects society.