The social problem I plan to discuss in my paper is the effect poverty has on society. In this paper I will go into detail about income inequality and the effect poverty has on crime, health and children. As someone who has family members living in poverty this social issue is important to me. I hope to pinpoint alternative approaches to solving this issue and my ultimate goal is to find an optimal solution to the poverty crisis. It’s no surprise that poverty and crime rates are positively correlated. Through hypothesis testing Judith R. Blau and Peter M. Blau concluded “High rates of criminal violence are apparently the price of racial and economic inequalities. In a society founded on the principle that all men are created equal economic inequalities rooted in ascribed positions violate the spirit of democracy and are likely to create alienation, despair, and conflict. The hypothesis derived from this assumption, which is also deducible from a general sociological theory, is that racial socioeconomic inequalities are a major source of much criminal violence.”() These findings are significant in proving that United States economic inequality does cause conflict. According to a 2010 wealth spread chart the top 5% of Americans posses 74.2% of the nations wealth. With a wealth spread like this, conflict is bound to arise. A famous study done by Shaw and McKay in (1942) compared delinquency rates in various areas within 21 cities and showed that the same variations in delinquency among socioeconomically different urban areas persisted for several decades even though their populations and ethnic compositions completely changed during that time. This study concluded that poverty is a main factor for delinquency rates. () Numerous of other studies have observed the highest crime rates in the poorest of areas. In the poorest of areas people need to do what they can to make ends meet. Crime is a necessity to some individual in order to feed their families and is not always necessarily done out of hate. Time and time again this can be proven especially when natural disasters occur. People lose everything and desperate times call for desperate measures, which usually involves looting. Money is everything in this world
In this article, as the title suggests, it explains the use of social class differences to explain racial differences in crime. Among earlier arguments are the subculture of violence and subculture of poverty theories, which argue that African Americans tend to have pro-crime norms and values. The article's author, Robert D. Crutchfield, goes in depth with recent and more advanced theories to explain the link between poverty, crime, and race, while criticizing the subcultural theories. These new theories tell a different view from that of the subcultural theories with evidence showing that economic disadvantage and the way how society is structured accounts for the link between poverty, crime, and race. From these evidence, ethnographers conclude
Overall, this paper is about how poverty is very prominent in our society, and we need to learn more about it. We need to increase aid to low- income families because they cannot support
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.
When it relates to violent crimes, specifically murder, the level of poverty in a city has been shown to be a contributing factor. According to (Horton, 2002), in his research comparing the rate of poverty to the rate of homicide, he found that there was a correlation between the two. In his article he talked about how those who fall under the poverty line tend
For those who are rich and powerful in the United States, they do not have to worry about how their health might be affected by their financials. The reality is, everyone else has to deal with connection between health and poverty. The cost to be healthy is expensive, so when there is a shortage in money it also puts your health at risk. The effects that poverty has on your wellbeing is connected to the lack of healthcare, and substance abuse, as well as the increase in
For those who live in the United States, some do not see the correlation between poverty and its effects on people’s behavior to their academics. Poverty affects many students at a young age depending on the location they are in as it prevents underprivileged kids to seek higher education. However, with new opportunities [in effect], kids in poverty can have the same education as privileged kids. Poverty stricken students are disadvantaged when trying to obtain a higher education. Children in poverty lose their motivation in school when they do not have the support of their parents. Some other issues students face includes parents not being able to assist their child in school. Another is that the child is not able to go to school because they have to work instead and support their families. Although public education is available to all children, those that live in poverty are deprived of its full potential due to the factors of low family incomes as well as the lack of self-motivation and the importance of having an education.
Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues
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.
Poverty for centuries has been a very severe issue that has troubled many nations while impeding economic developments and progress. Poverty stricken countries are majorly concentrated in the continents of Africa and Asia. Continents like the Americas and Europe have globally been recognized as been wealthier yet still many parts of these ostensible countries face massive cases of poverty. Most at times, countries with high populations owing to high birth rates face the most cases of poverty. The definition of poverty can be boundless in the sense that poverty entails so many subsections as it sometimes gets complicated to group everything under one umbrella. Society tends to focus more on the tangible aspects of poverty because many people associate poverty with lacking money and it makes sense because poverty in terms of lacking money is a major problem affecting almost every country in the world. Even though it is debatable that poverty can be physical, intellectual, spiritual and even emotional, it is best to talk about the lack of money and economic developments in this essay. With reference to the oxford English Dictionary, poverty is state of being extremely poor and the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Reflecting on this definition given, I deduced that malnutrition and hunger can define poverty. In the light of this, I think poverty is lacking a comfortable place of shelter, being ill and not having access to a better
According to a New York Amsterdam News article, Poverty, not race, tied to high crime in urban communities, “The violent crime rate in highly disadvantaged Black areas was 22 per 1,000 residents, not much different from the 20 per 1,000 rate in similar white communities” (Unknown 1997). While there is a slight influx of criminal activity form American majorities to American minorities, the question of why this is so must be asked. The New York Amsterdam News article helps to provide an explanation for the fluctuation. As far back as the 1980’s, researchers have repetitively return to idea and
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 is the lack of the basic needs of life, including food, shelter, clothing and safe drinking water. For a person to live normally, it is important to meet a certain level of physical, social, and emotional needs. People who live in poverty have difficult time to achieve those as they are not welcomed in many places. Because of their low incomes, they have troubles in maintaining their health, hunger, education. Poverty has become a large issue around the world. It is something that many of us know about but we’re not realizing just how big of a problem it is. This paper will include basic information about poverty, its effects, facts and statistics which can make people aware and want to help reduce poverty.
the paper I will address these issues along with sociological views of poverty. Poverty is a social
This paper will discuss poverty, the different types of poverty and their definitions and who is affected by each type of poverty. It will look at the some of the major reasons why poverty exists and what causes poverty, like such things as inequality, stratification and international debt. Some of the impacts of poverty will also be analyzed from a national and global perspective; things like education, literacy rate, and crime. This paper will demonstrate that poverty affects almost everyone in some form or another and exists because those with power and wealth want and need poverty to exist to force a dependence on the wealthy. A few of the main
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.