Why Crime is a Social Problem?
Crime is a violation of given law in which there is penalties incurred after a certain violation. Crimes represent a type of formal deviation from social customs and norms administered by a certain authority or state. A research was conducted between criminology research and policy youth and concluded that crime is critically evaluated from the modern social trends in the world. Depending on the country or authority, crimes are divided into categories by law, the exact age of the offender, the severity or intensity of crime or offence, the potential punishment that can be undertaken as a result of violation of law. Society today has seen various people and crimes have originated in the community around and spread to be crisis. Biological and physiological explanation has not fully given an explanation of how and why higher crime rates are associated with certain location or even social background of people. For instance if Texas has higher crime rate than los Angeles and the united states has higher crimes than Russia, it would be wrong to say that people in Texas and united sets have the same biological problem and psychological problems than those people from Los Angeles and Russia. This essay seeks to describe and explain why crime is a social problem and how one can change depending on the environment.
Sociological explanations have found their ways to explain the social pattern of crime, also the increase in number of crime rate, and to give us some possible solution from it. According to the functional perspective, social structural theory suggests that most crime is due to the fall of society norms including societies organization and the root crime problem is from the society itself rather than one’s biological or psychological life. Society has been disorganized in such a way that certain number of social characteristics experienced in the neighborhood is the major contributor of high crime rates. These traits are poverty, population density and population turnover of the society. As said by Merton Robert, crime committed by the poor comes from a space or a gap created between culture emphasis and society’s success, and the incapacity to attain accomplishment through more logistical way which is working. According to Sutherland Edwin’s, crime is a social problem since criminal behavior can be learnt due to close friends who practice such crime and teaches another person. This social interaction has yielded higher crime rate in the society and has become one of the major reasons for crime in society. This has seen many communities fail to teach their children the correct way of life and some end up to be labeled: “arrested and will be imprisoned for life”. Another aspect of crime is emergency e of conflict. Conflict arise as from different factors social class, ethnicity, race and classs.as result crime has seen its way in and become a social problem since the rich or those who are wealthy use resource to fight the law if they commit a violation. Since the society comprises of different people with different ethnical background or has categorized themselves to different groups, this creates desire for power and control over resources. People of a certain group, if powerful, can influence certain laws to be passed in which they do not favor the other group. Crime comes in and people try to assume those facts but after some time it is becoming a crisis in the society.
In conclusion all this crimes originate from the society itself. It’s a social problem because it affects the entire society. Crime is majorly influenced by interaction of bad friends, difference in opinion, the desire to influence power, the ability to control resources and social organization. All this is seen as a result of people ignoring the fact that society is not about competing in social class or even focusing on economic success but to generate good behavior pattern.
