Social Class and Crime Essay Example

Personal success is always highly valued in Western countries. The successful individual may always reach the pinnacle of their profession, live in a luxurious home, enjoy a happy life, and cycle wealth. People who are born at the bottom of society, such as those who are poor, are always stuck in a dead-end employment cycle. The dead cycle's consequences put more pressure on the person who "needs" to succeed. In other words, as a result of this, crime increases. People from the middle and upper class are more likely to commit crimes, yet always go undetected. If the middle class and upper class are caught, they are frequently unpunished. They will arrest the poor since the "research" stated that they are "less educated" and because the poor lack the power to escape from the wealthy to blame them, whereas the rich always have a way out. In general, the higher up you are in society, the less likely you are to be arrested. The higher up you are in society the less you have to deal with crime 

Unfortunately, criminologists have yet to provide a definitive response regarding the class–crime relationship, a relationship that is further complicated when crimes committed by the powerful, which are generally excluded from criminological examinations of class and crime, are included in the equation. If crime and other harmful behaviors are more widely dispersed throughout social classes, these approaches may be ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst, and even destructive in preventing crime and reducing the harm it causes. The connection between social class and the commission of street crimes is weak and only exists under specific circumstances. As a result, criminology experts must continue to try to pinpoint other factors that could influence this connection.

The phrases like upper class, middle class, lower class, working-class, and underclass while addressing the social class. These phrases are used to categorize social groupings based on their economic, social, political, cultural, or lifestyle resources. Since there is considerable controversy concerning the relationship between social class and criminality, the link between criminal victimization and social class is well-known and widely recognized. All Americans accused of a crime are treated equally in front of the bar of justice in every American court. The Constitution's "due process" and "equal protection" sections guarantee this, and the Bible serves as inspiration. According to the New York Times, article Equal Justice for the Poor (1964) the Bible mentions “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” But despite all of these precautions and guarantees, the impoverished frequently do not receive the same level of justice as the wealthy. As Justice Black has stated, “There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.” According to the Class and Crime by Law Jrank The poor economic conditions are more difficult for the poor than for the middle class, and this leads to higher crime. The approach looked at the social class of those convicted of crimes, whether they were convicts or others formally labeled as offenders. Convicts were and are, on the whole, poor. crime rates were compared to a collection of social and economic variables of specific geographic locations. This research looked into whether places with high poverty rates and low social class also have high crime rates. The majority of people said yes to this question. However, because of the power of money, anytime the upper class does something wrong, there is a probability that the blame will be on the lower class.

The crime was also quantified in a variety of ways to see if it influenced the relationship between social class and criminality. For example, looked at whether the negative relationship between social class and delinquency was limited to the most serious criminal offenses or the most regular offenders. Furthermore, the source of crime data was assumed to influence whether or not a link between social class and crime was discovered. If official police data or court records are utilized to define criminality, some criminologists believe it will reveal that crime is more widespread among the lower classes. They argued, as previously stated, that people from lower socioeconomic levels are more inclined to underreport criminal conduct on self-report questionnaires.

An analysis of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 2004 imprisoned population reveals that the vast majority of those serving time for criminal charges are from the lower socioeconomic strata of society. According to government statistics, criminal offenders in jail are less educated, more likely to be unemployed, and earn far less than the general population. A similar pattern was discovered in a 2002 survey of convicts detained in municipal jails: Even though the national unemployment rate was below 5% at the time of their arrest, only around half of the jail inmates were working full-time at the time of their arrest, and more than half earned less than $15,000 per year. The conventional picture of street crime is of the impoverished preying on the wealthy, but the truth is that most criminals commit their crimes within a short distance of their homes. As a result, if structural tensions such as poverty and inequality are more likely to lead to individuals committing common crimes, the poor are also more likely to be victims of street crime. Additionally, according to the article The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime (2020) Deborah Kelley, a broker who acknowledged paying a portfolio manager with New York's massive state pension fund more than $100,000 in bribes and then lied about it. Kelley faced up to five years in prison, but the judge decided to sentence her to home confinement and probation since Kelley was "a kind person." And since the wealthy are always great folks, or have only made one mistake in their lives. The judge's fairness may never be revealed because the poor are sentenced based on their actions, while the wealthy are not. According to the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, white-collar crime costs the United States more than $400 billion a year, according to Reiman's calculations. He went on to say that this statistic understates the full cost of white-collar crime. When we consider who is more likely to hurt society, it appears that the upper and middle classes offer the greatest threat to our health, lives, and financial well-being. If we keep to the subject of who commits the offenses that the justice system is looking for, the picture is still hazy.