A Brief Note On Poor And Urban Crime Essay

Inner city youth are the children who live in the heart of America’s largest, most poverty-stricken cities. In cities such as Detroit, the children are predominately African American, Caucasian, Asian, and Latino (“Wayne County, 2012”). Statistics show that fifteen and sixteen year old children are the most likely age group to commit a crime in Detroit and the surrounding area (“Wayne County, 2012”). These crimes range from stolen property, to the most heinous of crimes, murder and rape (“Wayne County, 2012”). Poverty appears to play a direct role in the level of criminal activities within inner cities.

Neighborhood factors include aspects such as socioeconomic status and urbanization. Socioeconomic status is one of the main correlates of crime and delinquency, and neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status often lack sufficient money and resources (Sampson and Groves 1989, 780). In the book, LaJoe was unemployed and received governmental aid every month to buy groceries, pay the rent, and support her many children. She lacked the money to buy her

Crime is something that happens every day. Many people fear it, but it is a factor that people cannot escape. In places, like Detroit, people are surrounded by violent crime. Either they are the victims of it, or the committers, but it was not always like this. During the sixties, Detroit was one of the most lucrative cities in the country. Many people moved there to seek jobs in the automotive factories which increased the population to 1.85 million. (Padnani, 2013) However, this is not the case now. Many of the factories have moved, putting people and their families at a disadvantage. A numerous amount of workers relied on these jobs to feed their families. Since then, Detroit has faced a significant amount of hardships that has caused the city to deteriorate effecting education, employment, and the crime rate each factor acts as a chain reaction. The lack of diversity in the city can be a factor of the crime rate as well because Detroit is filled with a large population of minorities. Many politicians have looked for ways to solve the problem, but nothing has been proven to work.

that disadvantaged neighborhoods may be breeding grounds for distrust toward police (Sharp & Johnson, 2009).

The purpose of this paper is to address residential segregation, why it exists, and how it relates to crime. Residential segregation is the physical separation of one or more groups based upon race and is more pronounced in suburban areas and inner city neighborhoods (Class Notes, 2014). Inner city neighborhoods are heavily populated with racial and ethnic minorities and tend to lack socially stabilizing resources such as adequate parental supervision, education, and long-term, stable employment (Walker, 2007). The conditions of poverty limit the opportunities for residents to escape inner city neighborhoods and create opportunities for the existence of crime and criminal behavior.

What causes the number of order maintenance crimes to be much higher in the lower income and housing development areas? The social disorganization theory explains some of it. In 1942, Shaw and McKay suggested as part of the theory “that the economic composition of a community

At the same time, the inner city is the nesting ground for criminal elements. Based on multiple surveys, inner city neighborhoods breed the most crime than any other area. As a result, law enforcement officers regularly patrol the inner city and target lower-class urban dwellers. The tough approach on crime in the cities is a backlash resulting from the spiraling crime concentrated in poorer colonies of racial minorities. The illegal drug trade, firearms trade and gangsterism that prevail in the inner city are some reasons that legitimize the police’s systematic clamping down on minority inner city residents.

Disparity in crime regularly occurs due to absence or breakdowns of community societies that should encourage inter-communal relationships between people. The social relationships can exist in families, educational organizations, churches, and/or the government (Miller, 2012). Rapidly increasing population due to immigration has losses in the form of moderately low-income earners who either lack qualifications for good jobs or do not have proper migration papers. These social groups are pressured by their environment into criminal behavior (Miller, 2012). Social disorganization indicates a lack of family institutions to promote social

(UCR Publications,2012) Though it may sound that I currently live in a city where the crime rate is higher than other cities in the US but I live on a golf course where the majority of the neighbors are older and wealthy. Like every city there’s a good side of town and a bad side. Not to be stereotypical but most of the crimes occur in those parts of town, usually in the area were low income people live. As well as homeless people may be found. I don’t want to seem biased either because even in the good parts of town these crimes may occur. The patterns that are seen here is that the crime start very high it stays like that for a while, then it suddenly drops as newer generation start to grow and begin to experiment or begin to get involve in unhealthy habits, or their environment is compromised.

To inform their analysis Peterson and Krivo use the social disorganization theory. These perspectives suggest that neighborhood disadvantages, residential instability, immigration, community investments, and white residents are the critical factor at play and that these conditions have spatial effects through direct spillover and the way they affect crime-controlling and/or crime-generating processes within focal neighborhoods. (Peterson & Krivo 2009; pg. 97) If adjacent areas have high levels of disadvantages crime in a focal neighborhood may be

Chicago is a big and beautiful city in the United States, this paper will discuss the cities demographics and analyze a criminal profile. It will include the characterization of the city in terms of social and intellectual context and identify social factors that contribute to crime. A description of beliefs people living there would accept for explaining criminal behavior by linking of events or attitudes. It will consider the changes in land use, property values, transportation, and retail as one moves away from the city. If there are any changes, it will describe the distances between these

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.

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.

“Many people living in poverty do not want to be living in poverty. In order to obtain a higher level of socioeconomic status, crime is seen as the only option.” (Wilson, 1987).

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.