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Why does poverty cause crime
Violent video games and their effects
Violent video games and their effects
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Every time someone turns on their TV to the news channel, or goes to the news on their phone or computer they see a myriad of crimes that were committed during that week. Crime today is so popular that most of the conversations people start and end with have to do with a certain crime. I decided to do research on why youth crimes are so high today, and what we can do as citizens of this nation to prevent it from happening. So, what causes crime? What leads people to do such heinous things, like brutally murdering someone, stealing, and vandalizing? What causes a human being to act in such barbaric way? Statistics have shown that the leading cause of crime seems to be poverty. Along with poverty it can be said that having violent parents or single parents, and the addiction to violent video games can also lead to crime. One of the top reason why crimes are is due to poverty. Poverty is basically everywhere, especially in places like cities and urban areas. Mark Rank says in his article, “Poverty in America Is Mainstream,” that 40% of Americans between the ages of twenty-five and sixty will experience at least one year of poverty. In areas where poverty is popular, the rate of crimes being committed increases. In cases of poverty, people will resort to crime if they believe the life saving benefits outweigh cost or consequence of the crime. For example, a family in need of a meal to eat for the night will most likely steal it from someone or steal money to buy the food.Another example is, a person that may be involved in substance abuse will steal to fulfill their need for drugs. People might steal in order to seek revenge, because they want another person to be miserable.This is why crimes such as burglary and theft are so high in... ... middle of paper ... ... something they do not want to do. The main cause of this is wanting to be accepted by your peers, or looking for alternative ways to overcome your difficulties at home or other personal issues. There is no solution to crime, however there is a solution for the cause of it or in this case the causes. Poverty, violent parenting, substance abuse, peer pressure, and misusing violent video games are some causes of crime. These causes are present everywhere and impact millions of people around the world every day. It may be seen as though it is not much of a big deal, but it is what causes crime. It is what leads people to take away that which is someone else’s or even leads them to murder someone. These inhumane acts are acted upon because of these causes. People should not let such things go to mind, bad times are temporary but crime in the hands of someone is eternal.
One of the most important social factors that contribute to violent death in the United States is poverty/ unemployment. “Poverty can lead to high levels of stress that in turn may lead individuals to commit theft, robbery, or other violent acts” (Taylor, 2006, p.1). Poverty can lead to people with an inferior education meaning that they have less access to quality schools, role models, and jobs. So many people including children and teens are more likely to engage in bad behaviors and associate themselves with gangs due to poverty. Crimes and violent deaths are committed when so impoverished people have a way to obtain material goods. When they want to acquire more goods they will commit more violent acts. Unemployment increases poverty rates and will lead to people committing crimes due to being depressed from having no
robberies to make money than hold a steady job. In essence, crime is already higher in low-income
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.
Two of the major criminological theories of the twentieth century are Merton’s strain/anomie theory and Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization. Both theories were very important in their time, and still influence theorization today. This paper will discuss both theories and point out similarities and differences.
Many people have jobs that their salaries do not compare with what it takes to live in the society today. For instance, rent is out of control. A person making minimum wages cannot afford to pay rent on their salary alone. They don’t have money to get an education, so they are not able to get a high paying job. Once again, many people will turn to selling drugs or some other illegal acts to pay for their expenses. This increases crime.
When I think of crime I think of an action someone has done that society sees as unfit, whether that action is justifies by the person. Most of the time people don’t really care if the person was stealing so they could feed their family or stealing so they can pay for medical bills, a crime is a crime. Although crime is unlawful there usually is an origin. Some argue that it comes from desperation, which are the usual ordinary crimes you hear on the news, others believe it comes from greed. Where does this constant state of despair come from, research points to poverty. It’s widely known that neighborhoods that struggle in poverty are more likely to be prone to crime. The greed aspect comes from people wanting to make a profit so they join organizations that revolve around crime, which would be organized crime. The greed that makes people do crime is brought by organized crime, while others firmly believe that crime comes from the desperation that poverty causes.
Violence is defined as the intentional use of force to harm a human being. Its outcome is injury (whether physical or psychological, fatal or nonfatal). Violence among teenagers is on the rise, and has been since the early 1980's. In my opinion this is due to the increase of violence in the media, the astounding availability of firearms and the lack of proper guidance in the home. Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice reports that from 1985 to 1993 murders committed by people over the age of 25 dropped an impressive 20%; meanwhile they increased 65% for people between the ages of 18-24 and an astounding 165% growth for teenagers 14 to 17. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in 1996, 6548 young people 15-24 years old were victims of homicides. This amounts to an average of 18 youth homicides per day in the US. It also states that homicide is the second leading cause of death for persons 15-24 and is the leading cause of death for African-American and Hispanic youths in this age group. There are a few things that we as Americans can do to stunt this problem, and it starts with the home. By focusing on the home first, we as Americans can drastically reduce the amount of violent crime committed in the US.
There are many studies that point out some risk factors that could be responsible for criminality, but it would not be appropriate to say that is specifically poverty or the current economy. This field of study is uncertain about affirming this kind of assumption. But all this discussion about Broken Windows Theory leads us to reflect why not try to prevent crime instead of act after the crime has been committed?
...tal factors poor, urban, minority youths commit more crimes. Researchers also must be aware that crime is changing due to technology. There is now more instances of cyber theft, and computer crimes than in the past, therefore the dynamics of the people that are capable to commit certain sorts of crimes are changing.
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.
If we studied through the history of criminal theory, spiritual and natural theories are taken as major theories of causation of crime. During medieval period, spiritual explanations were taken as punishment given by god for doing wrong things and any natural disasters like flood, fires, etc were evaluated as curse of high power. In modern period, the basic theories of causation of crime are classical theory, biological theory, psychological theory, cultural theory and conflict theory. The classical theory explains that free will acts as center of crime giving example of free will of children that may commit crime which cannot be paid once it committed. In the 19th century, the biological theory got public attention when Cesare Lombrose suggested that criminals cannot be identified by examining their body structures, number of toes, etc giving the research data that determined that ordinary people are mostly involved in crime than militants. Now, this theory is followed by Modern biological theory which signifies that chemical imbalance in brain results violence activities. It supports remarkable example of violence occurred due to lower portion of serotonin chemical and abuse of drugs alcohol (Fishbein 1990). Fishbein(2000) mentioned the relation of the damage of frontal lobe of brain and antisocial behavior. Similarly, psychological theory explains that mental illness of person convicts crime and is supported by Freud’s concept of id, ego and superego. Freud mentioned that any emotional trauma in children of 5 yrs age or above may result long –lasting negative influence. Likewise, the most common but important theory is sociological theory that deals with the conviction of crime ...
Several contributing factors can be viewed as reasons for crime. Depending on the circumstances, it can sometimes be very difficult to resist the temptation to commit a crime. It is even harder when you are coming from a place where crime is considered to be a normal part of society and looked at as a way of daily living that is supposed to be incorporated into daily lifestyles, hence the city we are not too far from: Fresno. In fact, by having a city or group of cities nearby where violence, crime, and gangs are abundant, it has given me an incentive to dig deeper into this issue. Now the question can be posed: What is the significance of crime in areas where poverty is present? True, this is not an easy question to answer considering that crime happens for many different reasons and sometimes location is not the problem. The origin of crime date back to the beginning of man, and the thing is it will never be stopped, as it is almost a part of human nature nowadays. But for now, we must study how crime and poverty are linked to one another, and what other contributing factors influence the effect of crime where poverty is relevant.
Human antisocial behaviour is complex and trying to understand it has always proven to be a daunting intelligent task, especially in modern culturally diverse societies. Crime, broadly defined as behaviour through which individuals obtain resources for others through uncouth means, presents as one of the most refractory internal social dilemmas. Understanding individual criminal acts such a murder, rape or motives behind them is intricate, rather their behavioral definitions and causes offers a more clear platform for argumentative reasoning. Criminal behaviour, regardless of manner, involves use of barbaric methodologies to obtain symbolic or material resources. Criminal behavior results from methodical processes that involve intricate interactions among isolated, societal, and environmental factors in people’s lives.
The topic of this study, social disorganization, will consist of the causes of major crime occurrence amid the Turkish juveniles. The rates of delinquency among these juveniles are high, which causes a major conflict for all society. To know the causes of these delinquency is much needed, even more is the solution for this increasing rate. Data, belonging to juveniles incarcerated from various Turkey juvenile correction facilities, was used from 2007. Also, to analyze the data, Binary Logistic regression was utilized. Two of the most important and most common factors that will be discussed in this article is education and living conditions. Education and living conditions could be possibility to the cause of major crime influence as indicated by multivariate analysis (Cam, 2014). These conclusions can be found in the following.
The majority of the South African people are unemployed or else the breadwinner of the family looses the job or dies. In that situation the family has nobody to provide them with the basic needs of life. The children have no money to go to school and that alone increases the rate of poverty as it is known to everybody that if u is uneducated, you have no good chances of getting a well paying job that will sustain you for the rest of your life. In those situations people turn to crime. They believe that it is the only way that will get food on their table, clothes on their back and roofs over their heads. They also believe that the poor must get their needs from the rich, in that way they target the rich people. The increase in the rate of poverty means the increase in the rate of crime.