Changing urban conditions - Essay Example

Blue-collar Crime Blue-collar Crime Losing a property as being stolen by other people makes the owner frustrated as his property is dear to him. In the same frustration other people may feel once they experience being kidnapped, raped, robbed and beaten to pulp. All of those events can be summarized in one word – crime. Crime happens anytime and anywhere as many factors cause the crimes to occur. Anybody can become a victim of crime in any form as no one is 100 percent protected from the negativities of the society.

Even though laws are present to control the occurrence of crimes, they still happen as the forms of crimes adjust to the environment. There are many forms of crimes, but before going deep into the type of crimes, the definition must be known as it will serve as the basic understanding of that concept. Basically, crime is associated with the term illegal which means contrary to the law. It does not adhere to the rules as the rules known as laws are set by a nation to protect its citizens and properties.

Once violated, the people who committed the crime are punished (Bailey, 2010, p. 4). The existence of laws and crimes occurs together as laws are present to antagonize the crimes and crimes happen whether intentional or not to go against the laws. Crime can also be defined in a more formal way as it is considered as a legal concept. A crime is any punishable act that the society considers as detrimental to its interest. The punishments do not only protect people but also groups and institutions.

The acts covered by the concept of crime ranges from traffic violation to homicide, and the violators of the law receive the penalty to protect the society and correct the offenders at the same time (Cassel and Bernstein, 2007, p. 2). Punishments have been used as a form of discipline to get the desired actions for the individuals in the society. Discipline may not seem to be easy to impose on other people as it involves both pleasant and unpleasant to make the people obedient to the laws and authority (Lipsky, 1977, p. 249). The discipline imposed on the offenders is negative or unpleasant as they are secluded from most people and receive different treatment.

Some even receive corporal punishment for their crimes committed. Corporal punishment is said to be gruesome as physical pain is applied to the violators or prisoners which can be in the form of electrocuting, whipping and handcuffs. Some states in America forbid the use of such punishments (Palmer, 2010, p. 40). There are many forms of crimes, but the three broad categories are “crimes against the person, crimes against property, and white-collar crimes […] divided by the designated punishment for the crime.

The categories of punishment are felony, misdemeanor, and petty misdemeanor,” (Schneider, 2006, p. 123). Among the punishments, felony serves as the most serious as it requires one year imprisonment while misdemeanors are less grave than felonies. Petty misdemeanors are the lightest punishments. The focus of the paper is on blue-collar crime which is part of occupational crime. It can be separated from white-collar crime since the latter involves wealthy individuals who abuse their powers.

Blue-collar crime is committed by people from the lower section of the society and the abuse is of a conventional type which includes theft (Chambliss and Golson, 2011, p. 60). A study was conducted about a blue-collar crime which is homicide and how the media respond and cover the homicide event. The spatial aspect of homicide and media coverage had been studied by Paulsen (2002) as he found out some inconsistencies between the area of the crime and the coverage. Certain discriminations exist in media coverage of crimes such as racial one wherein white victims are more featured in the news than the minorities.

Another discrimination is that women are more covered in crime news than male victims. In terms of age, younger victims are more noticeable than older victims. Lastly, the more people involve in the crime makes the event more covered by the media than single culprit and single victim in a crime. Crime hotspot analysis and mean centers were then done to study the relationship between news coverage and homicide location. The results were consistent. The study shows how media can affect a place as a location labeled as common occurrence of crimes, businesses would struggle there as people believe that place is not that safe.

It would really help if media would reduce errors in news coverage and do not put any bias and too much sensationalized news. ReferencesBailey, J. (2010). Taking action against youth crime. New York: the Rosen Publishing Group.Cassel, E. and Bernstein, D. (2007). Criminal behavior. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.Chambliss, W. and Golson, J. (2011). Crime and Criminal behavior. USA: Sage Publications.Lipsky, L. (1977). Thirty years of American Zionism. USA: Arno Press.Palmer, J. (2010).

Constitutional rights of prisoners 9th ed. New Jersey Matthew Bender and Company.Paulsen, D. (2002). Wrong side of the tracks: Exploring the role of newspaper coverage of homicide in socially constructing dangerous places. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 9(3), 113-127. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol9is3/paulsen.html