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The relationship between poverty and crime has been a subject of debate. Many people argue that people get involved in crimes because of poverty. They get involved in crimes in order to get money to meet their needs in life. Others believe that crimes are also committed by people who are not poor in the name of gratifying other desires not related to poverty. It can not be fully denied that poverty leads to crime but not all cases of crime are associated with poverty.
A criminal act culminates from moral disposition that drives somebody to take by force that which does not belong to him. Most forms of crime like rape, assault, fraud are meant to gratify a desire by taking another person’s possession by force. There is high correlation between poverty and crime but all forms of crime are not committed by the poor. Criminal acts are moral issues and may have nothing to do with poverty (Short 18).
In America for instance, crime is widespread among all ethnic groups both living in rural and those in cities, the ssrich and the poor. This has increased the government’s effort to investigate the causes of crime and device mechanisms to mitigate or eliminate such cases. The focus is mainly to control the factors that cause crime. The following paragraphs discuss various ways in which poverty may lead to crime.
The areas with high poverty level in the US urban areas have the highest cases of crime but this is inadequate to justify that poverty is the cause of crime. However, there are many ways that poverty contributes to crime. Firstly, the poor are believed to have more cases of mental illness compared to the rich and this causes them to live under stress. When the level of stress increases, people try to relieve it through indulging in violent acts, thefts, robbery among other forms of crime.
According to Short (18), poverty denies the poor chances of getting quality education and jobs especially the youths causing them to spend most of their time in places where they mingle with gangs. This is mostly due to lack of opportunity costs of crime thus engaging them in criminal acts. In this manner, more and more poor youths get involved in criminal acts like robbery, rapes, and violent acts among others.
The impoverished people lack legitimate means of accessing some material goods or living a good life. They lack good jobs that would enable them access these material goods and crime becomes their only option (Short 26). They engage in robbery in order to get money to buy what they desire in life. In this manner, poverty accelerates crime
Most factors that cause crime are associated with poverty. For instance, where there is high rate of unemployment, people lives in adverse poverty which cause depression that exposes them to criminal acts. The cases of crime therefore increases or are directly related to unemployment. High rate of unemployment creates social classes where the employed continue to get rich and the unemployed gets poorer. The cases of crime also continue to increase as the unemployed looks for means of earning a living.
The number of minorities living in an area may increase the cases of crime due to high level of poverty. Most of the minorities like in US inhabits the impoverished urban areas and are discriminated against wages and job opportunities. They get low wages and fewer job opportunities thus making them poorer. This causes most of them to engage in criminal acts thus increasing the rate of crimes in the country.
The population density in an area also determines the poverty level and the rate of crime. It has been proven that highly populated places have many poor people; young, single parents and others.
Despite the above convincing points relating poverty to crime, the issue remains controversial. There are countries with high level of poverty but the rate of crime is very low. The relationship between poverty and crime may not hold in such countries (Short 29). The criminal justice scholars have observed a positive correlation between poverty and crime. They claim that 53% of people who end up in jail are the poor with below $10,000 annual income. They argue that the poor find the benefit of crime surpasses the consequences and they end up committing the crime.
Poverty and crime are separable but on very rare cases. In most countries, developed and less developed, there is positive relationship between poverty and crime. This does not conclude that the poor are criminals. There are many countries with people living in adverse poverty yet they have very low rates of crime. Eliminating or minimizing poverty may reduce the cases of crime but it is not the only solution. The biggest responsibility of minimizing crime lies with the prisons where criminals are confined. They should try to reform the criminal as well as finding out from them the causes of crime. This would help attack crime from the root cause.
Works cited
Short, James. Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime. Boulder, CO: West view Press, 1997. Print.
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