Poverty And Crime

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Mike Intro to Criminology 1st paper Poverty and Crime Douglas Massey states that poverty contributes to crime in cities because the poor adopt a violent and aggressive demeanor to reduce the risk of being victimized themselves. He states that in the near future most poor stricken people will live in the same neighborhoods and there will be a define line between poor and rich developments. When this happens there will be more tension between rich and poor people and the rich will become more vulnerable to criminals. Criminal behavior is associated strongly with income deprivation. Therefore, given the progressive concentration of violence some poor people will adopt violent attitudes for survival strategies. As more people adopt these strategies the violence in poor neighborhoods will rise and it will continue to get worse over time. The children will also suffer as they will not get the proper education and attention from their parents and they will fall into the same situation as their parents. He states that the future is bleak because the more poor we have the more violence we will have and that will inevitably boil over and cause major problems in society. On the other side the John Howard Society of Alberta argues that even though a lot of criminals grow up in poor situations, poverty does not cause crime. They state that a person’s individual life experiences and social and economic circumstances are far too complex to make a direct link. They believe that evil results from having too much not too little, kids have so much money they get bored and have nothing to do so they commit crimes. Studies have shown that at least 90% of high school boys have engaged in some delinquent behavior. Some of those are not poor so there has to be another link to criminality. Family stress they believe can also be a link to criminal behavior, but there are not enough
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