Role of Power and Inequality in Crime Causation

Role of Power and Inequality in Crime Causation

Crime causation can be understood as a means of connecting criminal conduct with a resulting effect. Different scholars came up with theories to explain crime causation as explained in the subsequent paragraphs;

The Role of Inequality in Crime Causation

The link between inequality and crime is stressed by the ecological theories of crime, the social disorganization theory and strain theory (Winters, Globokar & Roberson, 2014). In the economic theory of crime, Becker (1968) individuals allocate time for market and criminal activities by comparing the expected return from each.  In this case, inequality leads to crime by placing low- income individuals who have low returns from their market activities to those high-income individuals who have things worth stealing (Winters et al. 2014). Moreover, the economic theory of crime shows how areas of high inequality place poor individuals to engage in criminal activities.

Strain Theory

According to (Winters et al. 2014), strain theory argues that, when faced with the relative success of others around them, unsuccessful individuals feel frustrated with their situation. According to (Nivette, 2014), the greater the inequality, the higher the strain and thus, low-status individuals resort to committing a crime. We live in a society where people are not equal, and the societal expectations and pressure may be too much on individual to achieve their goals and at the same time competitions with those of high class within the same society increases the strain on individual who ends up seeking for other alternatives to achieve their goals (Nivette, 2014).

Social Disorganization Theory

According to (Tatum, 2017), social disorganization theories argue that crimes occur when the mechanisms of social control are weakened. The factors that may undermine a community’s ability to regulate its members are; poverty, racial heterogeneity, family instability and residential mobility; people frequently move into and out of the community (Nivette, 2014).  Therefore inequality is associated with crime because it is linked to poverty since areas with high inequality tend to have high rates of crimes

The Role of Power in Crime Causation

Several theories have been developed to explain the role that power has on crime causation in our society. For instance, the critical theory which has tried to explain group differences in crime rates in terms of the larger social environment (Tatum, 2017). Moreover, several versions of critical theory exist, but all explain crime in terms of group differences in power as elaborated below;

Marxist Theory

The Marxist theory argues that those who own the means of production; for instance, large businesses, factories do have greater power (Curran, 2016). This group (capitalist class) uses its power for its own advantage. For example, the capitalist normally works for the passage of the laws that criminalize and severally sanction the “street” crimes of lower-class person but ignore the harmful actions of the business as well as industry such air pollution, water pollution, and unsafe working conditions (Curran, 2016). Furthermore, the capitalist act to increase their profits; for instance, they resist improvement in working conditions and also attempting to hold the wages of workers. In a nutshell, Marxists acknowledge that disputes sometimes arise within the capitalist class and that the government sometimes makes concessions to workers in an effort to protect the long-term interests of capitalists (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2017).

Feminist Theories

        The feminist theories majorly focus on gender differences in power as a source of crime (Curran, 2016). The theories basically address two issues: why are males more involved in most forms of crime than females, and why do females engage in crime (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2017). Notably, most theories of crime were developed with males in mind; feminists argue that the causes of female crime differ somewhat from the causes of male crime.

Thus, gender differences in crime are said to be due largely to gender differences in social learning and control. For instance, females are socialized to be passive and focused on the needs of others. Furthermore, females are more closely supervised than males; this is partly because fathers and husbands desire to protect their “property” from other males (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2017).

Some females, of course, do engage in crime. Feminist theories argue that the causes of their crime differ somewhat from those of male crime, although female crime is largely explained in terms of strain theory in that; female crime stems from the fact that juvenile females are often sexually abused by family members (Peterson, Krivo & Browning, 2017). This high rate of sexual abuse is fostered by the power of males over females, the sexualization of females-especially young female. Abused females frequently run away, but they have difficulty surviving on the street; hence; as a result, they often turn to crimes like prostitution and theft to survive (Peterson et al. 2017).

Conclusion

In summary, the patterns of crimes borrow greatly from inequality and power. Inequality and power have greatly increased violent crimes, among other different types of crimes. For instance, the Marxist theory argues that those who own the means of production; for instance, large businesses, factories do have greater power. The capitalist class uses its power for its own advantage.