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Exogenous Theory Of Crime Essay

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Crime has been going down in the United States since 1991 (Glazer, 1997), still many Americans do not believe that crime is declining despite many criminologists say the trend is real. This could be because about half of reported news stories are homicides, but homicide is a fraction of 1% of United States crime. Crime statistics have been getting more accurate due to better methods of surveying and better ways for police forces to process incoming data. Although there is a noticeable decline in crime rates in the United States in the 1990s, the cause of this change is still uncertain, but there are many theories. These theories can be broken down into two groups: theories caused by exogenous effects or theories caused by public policy.
The first exogenous theory is due to economic stress. Most theorists believe that economic stress undermines the legitimacy and weakens social bonds in a society. Early postwar, the economy was strong while crime rates were low and stable. As the economy weakened into the 1960s, crime rates began to rise. During the “crime bust” in the 1990s, federal spending was at its lowest since 1979. Poverty rates had fallen for the first time in five years and income inequality began to decline. Unemployment also reached its lowest percentage in …show more content…

One of the largest impediments is the lack of useable time-series data. It is seldom possible to gather 50 years of consistent data to use in a study. This makes it difficult to come to a solid conclusion. Another issue occurs with the process in which data is gathered: sample sizes are generally small and data is often collected based on convenience rather than theory. There is also a problem collecting data because not all crime is reported. The way crime records were gathered and stored 50 years ago is much different than the way they are at present. This makes it more difficult to compare data over

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