Question

Discuss how poverty and inequality impact urban violence and crime. How does Durkheim's Anomie Theory help or hinder the explanation for this violence? Can Merton's Strain Theory explain what is going on in society? If so, how?

Answer 1

PART -1

Poverty and inequalty are widely believed to cause violence and crimes. Lets understand these two aspacts individually:-

Poverty has been linked to violence in a number of ways. Most scholars believe that those who live in poverty more frequently engages in acts of violence as a consequence of conditions to which these people are subject to. These conditions include, poor housing, distressed neighborhood and disrupted families.

If a person was not poor than he would not have faced a situation where he require to search some alternative to get money. Thats the biggest reason they get into crimes and violence. As a consequence of the fact that poverty causes crime , criminally distorted psychology of society , values, personailty as a direct cause of crime are expressed by more than just greed, irresponsibility and neglection of criminal law prohibition.

# Inequality whether in terms of income , wealth, welfare or endowment is a strong determinant of everything from social cohesion and social mobility.
It has been seen that when a people living in environments characterized by high levels of economic and social inequality tend to be more exposed to violence and victimization than those living elsewhere. Neighbourhoods exhibiting higher levels of income inequality and concentrated disadvantage experience higher levels of mistrust, social disorganisation and violent crimes.

To reverse inequality and make city safer goverment must start by targeting the hotspots area of deprivation.

PART - 2

Durkheim's concept of anomie referred to a condition of relativce normlessness of a society or social groups.

Durkheim's theory of anomie and crime has not been carefully explicated and elaborated. Durkheim did'nt provide an extensive discussions of how anomie affects crime rates and also at the same time he did'nt present anomie as the only cause of crime. Thats what the obstruction we were facing before that what is the direct link between poverty and crime or violence.

PART-3

Accorting to Strain, crime occurs when there are'nt enough ligitimate opportunities for people to achieve the normal success goals of a society. In such a situation there is a Strain between the goals and the means to achieve those goals, and some people turn to crime in order to achieve success. He explained the 5 adaptable options when strain occurs which are as follows:- Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism, Rebellion.

Merton's theory is an important contribution to the study of crimes and deviance as it explained clearly why crime continued to exist in counries such as America where there is high income inequality.

Mertons's theory can also be applied to explain White collar crimes which are the frauds at work.

Merton's theory also explained the rising crime rates during a period of economic growth in malaysia.