Crime: Inevitable crime
The American sociologist David Matza in 1964 described the study of crime as a ‘search of differentiation’. It was based on the premise that there was something ‘wrong’ with criminals in comparison with the rest of the population. This ‘search’ set out to find the differences between criminals and law abiding citizens and what inhibits them from conforming to conventional norms and legal rules.
Criminality in general exists in individual and social groups. Though scientist have argued that it is genetic, sociologist and psychologists have found more credible ground in explaining it through the backgrounds of criminals and the circumstances they were in when they committed the crimes.
The psychogenic approach to explain crime comes from the arguments put forward by Freudians. They say that early childhood experiences and emotions with disturb or distort the development of a socially accepted and proper character may result to anti social tendencies in adulthood. These tendencies many a times manifest themselves as criminal behaviours[1]. This argument claims that the situations and surroundings a child is brought up or grows up in are responsible for the eventual outcome of the child. It is undeniable that crime still exists in this day and age. Therefore it would be wise to look at what are the reasons behind the situations criminals come from and the circumstances they have gone through.
To do this, one must look at the cultural and social structural factors surrounding the criminal and ask if they beneficial to him or are they leaving him with no choice but the resort to unlawful means.
One of the factors experienced by many criminals is inequality. Many of today’s social institutes are set up and run by the middle to upper class people. Quality education is only provided to those who can afford them. Necessities are often located near the rich and are far away from those who would already have difficulties getting to them. These factors are very biased against the lower worker class of people. They do not give the opportunity for the poor to work their way up and escape from their cycle of poverty and break into the higher levels in society. The divide between the rich and poor is even clearer in capitalist economies were the working class people work to make the upper class capitalist even richer while they themselves remain poor. This obvious disparity would cultivated much displeasure in the hearts of the workers and make them harbour intent to either take revenge on their employers or obtain their level of wealth through unlawful means.
Another common factor experienced by criminals is unemployment. Today, with globalisation happening in break neck speeds, it is increasingly easy to move resources and means of productions to where labour is the cheapest. This is happening in many developed countries where corporations from these countries move their factories to developing and third world countries so that they can produce their good at a very low cost. Though this might be financially beneficial to the corporations, it is not as good for the country of origin as there would be a factory load of unemployed people. Without an income, people would find it increasing hard to survive in a country with a high cost of living. The constant bombardment of advertisements and commercial schemes would be a constant pressure to succumb to the materialistic ways for the world and resort to theft or burglary. Studies have also shown a direct relation between crime rates and unemployment rates. Researchers examined national crime rates between 1979 and 1997 and found much of the increase in crime during that period can be explained by falling wages and rising unemployment among men without college educations[2]. This result was only true for crimes that had economical motive behind them. Crimes like murder and rape did not show a clear change with a change in unemployment rates. Nevertheless, majority of the crimes committed during the period in question were indeed financially motivated.
If the goal of law enforcement bodies is to abolish crime from the streets, wouldn’t it be wise to tackle the problem from the roots. Although punishment has been a very effective deterrent from crime for many people, it does not address the primary question of why people commit crimes. It does not entertain the notion that criminals had no other choice but to commit crimes because of the pressure society has weighed upon them. And even if one is to look into the reasons behind these situations, making effective changes would be very hard. Firstly, if social equality is to be achieved, the rich would definitely not agree to distribute their wealth. Secondly, even if everyone was to adopt the level of equality as the communist, they will not be spared from corrupt officials and bureaucratic red tape. This would in turn lead to more worrying issues as oppression and the absence of human rights. It labour is to be protected within a country; the cost of productions will be greater than otherwise. With privatisation and free market policies being implemented in many countries, capitalist would not support the idea of spending more than the minimum amount of resources they will have to spend to produce a commodity. Sadly, government bodies cannot enforce legislation to prevent this as these capitalists are at many a times the people who funded the government into office. Unless, radical changes are brought about by the masses, if for see that law enforcers would not have to worry about job security in the near future.
[1] Introduction to sociology, 2nd edition Macmillan
[2] http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive//crimwage.htm
