Today, crime is not a new matter. In fact, crime and violence have been existent in the United States for more than two centuries. We can trace crime all the way to the Old West to the inner cities of the early 1900s. Since then, criminal activity has constantly been evolving along with our nation. In order to protect the safety of the public, government agencies were created for the purpose of combating and deterring crime. Criminologist have placed great emphasis in determining why people commit crime. For this reason, criminologist have generated multiple theories that define why crime occurs. For the remaining of this paper, we will focus on sociological theories, which is broken down into three sub theories; social structure theory,
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Today, we live in a society where wealth, control, and standing is unequally dispersed. Financial variations divided the lower, middle, and upper social classes. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Currently, it is estimated that more than 45 million of Americans live in poverty, which is broken down as a family of four, who earns approximately $24,000 per year (Siegel & Worrall, 2014). Families that are living in poverty have limited resources and are more likely to suffer socially and economically. Educational opportunities are limited, a large portion high school students drop out of school only to find jobs with no future. It is a never ending cycle, individuals are powerless of breaking out. Lastly, living conditions for families living in poverty are run downed areas that are more likely to attract crime. Areas with excessive unemployment, low performing, and underfunded schools, or poor citizens are more likely to produce criminals (“Varying Theories on Crime”, …show more content…
In other words, children who grow up in low income neighborhoods are more likely to engage in criminal activity. The outcome of financial disparity, poverty, and racism are considered responsible for youth engaging in crime and drugs. Disorganized neighborhoods experience commercial, industrial, transient, and residential changes, which lead to informal social control. Disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to attract more crime than affluent neighborhoods. For this reason, communities become socially disorganized, which lead residents to submit to antisocial behaviors (Siegel & Worrall,
Today, we live in a society where wealth, control, and standing is unequally dispersed. Financial variations divided the lower, middle, and upper social classes. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Currently, it is estimated that more than 45 million of Americans live in poverty, which is broken down as a family of four, who earns approximately $24,000 per year (Siegel & Worrall, 2014). Families that are living in poverty have limited resources and are more likely to suffer socially and economically. Educational opportunities are limited, a large portion high school students drop out of school only to find jobs with no future. It is a never ending cycle, individuals are powerless of breaking out. Lastly, living conditions for families living in poverty are run downed areas that are more likely to attract crime. Areas with excessive unemployment, low performing, and underfunded schools, or poor citizens are more likely to produce criminals (“Varying Theories on Crime”, …show more content…
In other words, children who grow up in low income neighborhoods are more likely to engage in criminal activity. The outcome of financial disparity, poverty, and racism are considered responsible for youth engaging in crime and drugs. Disorganized neighborhoods experience commercial, industrial, transient, and residential changes, which lead to informal social control. Disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to attract more crime than affluent neighborhoods. For this reason, communities become socially disorganized, which lead residents to submit to antisocial behaviors (Siegel & Worrall,