Crime and Poverty

By what percent has the U.S. prison population increased in the last three decades? The U.S. prison population has increased 790%.

The most important reason for high rates of crime is the family condition because even though people are highly affected by society and media they mostly follow their

States in 2004” this just supports the statement that it is a huge problem in the United States (Cooper, 2009, p. 1). Unfortunately, the Youth of America and these other countries have been a large demographic of these gangs for many years due to many contributing factors. One criminal factor that initiates gang violence are the overwhelming presence of adolescents and young adults involved with gangs, Celinda Franco states that not only youth participants but whole “youth gangs” have been on the radar for policy makers since the early 1900’s (Cooper, 2009, p. 2). Another factor is the nature of the remorseless and often violent nature of these gang related offenses many gang members act as if they have no conscience and no values, and the fact that a large percentage are “easy to influence” youth doesn’t help the case that most commit gang crimes on a whim. Finally, the fact that most of these gang related offenses that the youth carries out are in poverty stricken neighborhoods that have very poor socioeconomic status, this it is a bad situation that is difficult to escape from because young adults and adolescents do not have the means to move outside this zone and may never attain this goal (Cooper, 2009, p. 3).

One of the biggest problems we have is crime, poverty, and race. Crime never seems to go away, and it tends to affect certain areas more than others. When a community is plagued with crime then everyone starts to look at the community that it is affecting, the housing in the area and the race that is mostly affected or committing the crimes. This can create a domino effect, because the citizens are scared, victimized, and they begins to worry more about how they will be able to protect there family and if anyone cares what is happening in their community. Therefore, within this report we will examine statistical data from different areas and see if there is a trend with a particular group, race, or city and compare the data so that we can gain a better understanding of the collection of this data and make suggestions if at all possible on way to improve the data once it has been reviewed.

Crime exists and occurs in societies worldwide; it takes place in both developed as well as in developing countries, therefore the occurring of crime is also true in the case of a great nation such as the United States. There exist several major factors that directly as well as indirectly foster the rise of crime in societies such as poverty, injustice, drug addiction, unemployment, psychological factors, family background, racism and volatile political scenario. While all of these factors foster acts of crime in society, poverty is undoubtedly the most powerful and most influential factor that leads to crime because it encompasses several other interrelated issues thus making poverty the prime contributor to crime in the United States; and

In today’s society, we regard the crime as a number one social problem facing us. The level of crime can be helpful to understand the sense of well-being of a society. Many people believe crime occurs differently in each society based on its citizen’s conditions of living. Income inequality is one factor related to quality of life and higher rates of crimes. Economic struggle and poverty may lead to other problems such as drug abuse, dissolution of family bonds, and even crimes. When communities with higher economic problems don’t have access to enough resources to educate their youth, they cannot fight the social disorganization. People living in poverty are disadvantaged and cannot sustain their basic needs and therefore, they tend to commit violent crimes in order to make money to sustain these needs. Since they do not have any educational

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.

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:

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.

People commit crimes for various reasons. These various reasons got to do with social, economic, and cultural reason. These factors trigger an individual to do criminal activities. Social reasons are peer pressure, and school failure. Economic reasons are poverty. Cultural reasons are hatred. The combination of these factors is behind a person who commits crimes.

Crime exists everywhere in the world – in rural and urban areas in many countries, in the East and West, and among all types of people. This has led many government officials, especially those in urban areas, to focus largely on the reduction of crime among their respective constituencies and has led others to speculate on the factors that influence the amount of crime and how those factors can be controlled. Crime has been around since man and there is no doubt that it will continue to be around, until there is an existence of a perfect world. But for now, we

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.

Many factors generate crime. That ‘inner morality’ necessary to resist the temptation to rape, rob, or kill weakens in an environment of broken homes, systemic poverty, ethical relativism, religious decline. Poverty ’causes’ crime in general in the same way that pornography causes sex crimes and television violence causes violence by children: it is a predispositive condition. If the family life could be strengthened, raise the living standard, instill character values this could have an impact on lowering the crime rate.