Criminological Theories in Criminal Investigations - Research Paper Example

IMPACT OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS ON CRIME By Introduction The study of criminology seeks to unearth the contributing factors that lead to the occurrence of crime by studying crime patterns. To this day, and with the aid of other disciplines such as geospatial analysis, criminologists have been able to detect multiple causes of crime. These causes of crime can be explained through several approaches as determined by criminological theories. The rational choice theory asserts that people might commit crimes out of self-interest, and if the rewards of their acts outweigh the expected risks. The strain theory on its part states that if people fail to live up to society’s expectations, crime might be a resolution for them. As these theories highlight, crime is directly related to the nature of one’s surroundings and settings. In the light of these, criminologists have expressed a concern over the ongoing global financial crisis, which is affecting most of the nations on earth. The concern is that the crisis is likely to impact on crime by causing it to occur at higher rates in the affected nations. This phenomenon can be explained by the Social Disorganisation Theory, which relates high crime levels to an individual’s negative social and physical environments. Following this correlation, this study will assess the recent global economic crisis and highlight the potential impacts it is expected to have on crime by drawing on the Social Disorganisation Theory. Theory Criminologists have realized the fact that crime is never equally distributed within human populations because some areas will show higher crime rates and others will have lower rates. This explains the reason why people will know “bad areas”, that is, areas where crime occurs regularly. Again, they will identify “good areas”, and these are areas where there is minimal or no crime at all (Andresen 2014, p. 158). This is where the social disorganisation theory comes into play. In explaining such occurrences, the social disorganisation theory draws on two main questions; one is that what is it about a place that contributes to the occurrence of crime? And second, why is crime higher in some places, whereas others experience little or no crime at all? (Madyun 2006, p.14) argues that the unstable nature of the twenty-first century makes this theory applicable in the modern day occurrences; such as the current economic crisis. Economic crisis In definition, an economic crisis refers to a prolonged economic state characterized by low levels of investment and trade, as well as high rates of unemployment. It is also known as an economic slump or depression. The most recent economic crisis was experienced in 2007 and lasted to the end of 2008 thus its name, “The Financial Crisis of 2007-08” (Markus 2009, p. 77). It is said to have been the worst economic slump since the 1930s’ Great Depression. Stock markets all over the world dropped, banks collapsed, the housing market suffered, people were evicted, mass layoffs occurred and prolonged unemployment was experienced. In as much as the economic crisis is said to have ended, Jin (2014) states that it never did because issues such as economic imbalances and excess credit were never solved. As such, several nations to this day still experience the aftermath of the economic slump, and crime has been impacted upon too. Evaluation The Social Disorganisation theory applies during economic crises because most cultures in the twenty-first century place emphasis on economic success (Webber 2012, p. 346). As such, people weigh their success economically. Following this, an economic depression will activate strain as people seek to retain or acquire [economic] success even as economies fail. The result is usually strain. Strain pressures people to the point that negative emotional states such as depression, despair, and anger emerge (Vito, Maahs, & Holmes 2005, p. 165). It is this strain that encourages people, and especially young adults, to be delinquent. Delinquency is the urge and pressure to commit crimes as a means of “quenching” an urge. “…sustained economic weakness and unemployment may eventually lead to increased delinquency rates; crime skyrocketed in the 1930s Great Depression” (Siegel & Welsh 2010, p.38). From this statement, it is possible that the factors during the great economic slump, which influenced the skyrocketing of crime in the 1930s are the same ones influencing crime today. Therefore, driven by society’s pressure to remain successful or to be successful, people will engage in crime during hard economic times. The result is the emergence of new crimes as well as the higher frequencies of reported crimes (Krisberg, Guzman, &Vuong 2009, p. 2). Concisely, the fact that our societies perceive of economic success as the destiny of hard work is what results in the correlation between crime and low economic times. In evaluating data recorded by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the 2008/09 global economic slump, a correlation between economic crisis and crime is evident. Police recorded robberies in three states; Costa Rica, Sao Paulo, and Jamaica were compared to the periods just before the crisis. The results indicated that there was a significant increase in robberies after the crisis set in. In Jamaica, for instance, robbery rates for July 2009 were twice as high as the rates in July 2007. In Sao Paulo, there was a correlation between increasing consumer prices and police-recorded robberies (UNDC n.d). As such, the Social Disorganisation theory applies in that the deteriorating economic factors, that is, increasing consumer prices and all the negative aftermaths of economic crises such as lack of employment, high commodity prices, and high costs of living may have pushed the people in the affected states to turn to crime as a means of survival (Weisburd, Groff, & Yang 2012, p. 121). Greece is one of the nations that were unable to fully recover after the 2008/2009 economic crisis and still struggles with the impacts to date. According to Megaloudi (2013, n.p.), Greece was struggling with an economic slump towards even before the crisis hit. As such, it was hit harder than other nations of the world. As of 2013, it was experiencing its third year in the crisis. Statistics state that four million out of the eleven million population in Greece is unemployed. Additionally, the working population had their salaries slashed by more than thirty percent as from 2009. Worse still, Greece has been forced to maintain its GDP below six percent. This is against the recommended nine percent by the OECD (OECD 2012, p.191). Finally, the government, in sustaining sufficient funds to cater for necessities had to cut its social support programs by up to a half. The impact of these factors combined has been increasing crime; particularly drug abuse and robberies (Smith 2013, n.p.). As the Social Disorganisation theory states, lack of supportive environments pushes people into using any means possible to survive. In Greece, most of those that lost their jobs and those that have not been able to secure employment turned to drug abuse as a means of avoiding the harsh realities (Ghosh 2013). Illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and Shisha (poor people’s cocaine) are abused openly in the streets of Greece and particularly in its capital, Athens. Drug abuse in turn encourages further crimes. Since the drug abusers are unemployed, they need to find alternative means of acquiring their drug money. Therefore, they turn to mugging, robbery with violence, and stealing to mention but a few. This explains the branding of the once-peaceful Athens as a dangerous city (Kitsantonis 2011, n.p.). In this case, it is evident that the lack of supportive environments caused by the economic depression has resulted in an increase and development of crimes not experienced in Greece before. In the most recent impact of the current economic crisis in the world, South Africa’s ongoing xenophobic attacks are sufficient evidence. In the latest turn of events, native South Africans have been going on the rampage, finding immigrants, that is, people from other nations living there, and harming them. They have been looting their businesses, evicting them from their homes, beating them up, and in other cases, burning them alive (BBC 2015, n.p.). The violence, which amount to a humanitarian crisis, has been attributed to high unemployment levels amongst the youth. The youth ganged up against the immigrants claiming that they were responsible for the high unemployment levels in their country (Cibane 2015). As such, the killings are a means of “balancing” the issue of unemployment. As Gumede (2015) reveals, it is not the first time that xenophobic attacks have affected the nation. In 2008, during the height of the global economic crisis, similar attacks were experienced. “As the economy gets worse, poor blacks and African immigrants compete for scarce resources at the township level. African immigrants are likely to be better educated and more resourceful than locals- and the local response has been to turn to violence to stamp out the competition” (Gumede 2015, n.d.). In this statement, xenophobic attacks, which represent high-level crime, have been caused by the lack of employment (scarce resources). As such, the Social Disorganisation Theory explains that an economic crisis as an unfavourable condition indeed contributes to increase in crime rates. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, acknowledges that the world is stuck in the middle of an economic slump which has had several impacts on us. They include restriction of immigration in established countries, increasing anti-austerity levels, high unemployment rates in youth, and a general and widespread economic stagnation (2012, n.p.). NATO asserts that these emerging consequences are somehow related to increasing rates of homegrown terrorism. This occurrence has resulted from the fact that poor economic conditions mean lack of opportunities such as employment leading to desperation and feelings of hopelessness. In it, the chances of youth joining terrorist organisations increase. According to Hesterman (2013, p.205), the terrorist of the twenty-first century usesmoney (wealth) in luring the youth to join them. The wealth possessed by the terrorists having been acquired through donations from sympathizers, pirate activities, and acquired ransom. For instance, some wealthy Saudi Arabian patrons are known for funding Al-Qaeda activities (Weinberg 2013, p. 11). In more recent occurrences, Kenya, an East African state has been experiencing recurrent terror attacks within its borders. The attacks have been blamed on the Al Shabaab terror group which takes advantage of the North Eastern Somalis’ poor economic conditions to recruit them (Haynes 2014, p. 301). The Kenyan government is said to have neglected the North Eastern province which borders Somalia. The Somalia-based Al Shabaab terror group seems to have capitalized on the economic hardships by promising Kenyan youth better lives and radicalizing them. In this case too, the Social Disorganisation theory applies in that the scarcity of resources (favourable conditions) makes poor youth targets by terrorists. As such, the rising terrorist cases in the world can be attributed to the ongoing economic crisis. In some instances, it has been argued that the ongoing economic crisis has suppressed crime. In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI, announced that crime levels in the US had reached a forty-year low. These news were said to have alarmed many criminologists who had predicted an increase in crime levels post 2007/8 during the economic crisis (Wilson 2011, n.p.). According to Wilson, this trend was common during economic slumps, adding that in the 1960s depression, crime levels had reduced significantly. Several explanations exist to this occurrence; one says that owing to the suffering experienced during tough times, families become more united as they seek to support each other. As such, the young adults who are key factors in committing crimes were around their families most of the time (Council of Europe 2012, p. 5). Therefore, these factors collectively lead to decreased occurrence of crimes. The other explanation is defined by a revolution in the style of policing. New methods of policing such as “Hot-Spot policing” mean that when crime levels are expected to rise, the police are deployed at crime hot spots (Braga, Papachristos, & Hureau2012, p.1). In this way, they are able to curb crime better than during times of normalcy when surveillance levels are normal. As such, the recent economic slump activated high surveillance policing, leading to the sabotaging of potential crimes, thus the significant drop in crime levels. In this case, the explanation defies the Social Disorganisation theory in that rather than encourage crime, the economic depression has actually reduced it. In a case study review conducted by Tomasic (2011) to prove that economic crises actually reduce rather than promote crime, Tomasic justified the assertion. It was found that before economic crises, there are widespread cultures of minimal regulations of financial markets. This in turn supports multiple malpractices within the financial sector that most cases go unnoticed. For instance, money laundering, insider trading, tax avoidance, and foreign corrupt practices are numerous during times of normal economic condition (Edelbacher, Kratcoski&Theil2012, p. 81). However, as the economy in 2007 led to a collapse of the financial markets, the probes that followed were able to reveal these malpractices. As the failed agencies were being replaced by others that were expected to be more effective, the unacceptable practices, which can be termed as crimes, were revealed (Tomasic 2011, p. 7). As such, it means that during economic crises such as the ongoing one, regulations in the financial sector are more strict, thus the occurrence of fewer crimes. In this, it is sufficient to state that in some instances, economic depressions reduce crime rates. In as much as the correlation of crime and the current economic depression is controversial, there is sufficient evidence to justify that poor economic conditions support crime. McFarlane (2012, p. 539-540) states that following the ongoing current crisis, which began in 2007, the criminal justice system in the US has been forced to reconsider its functioning. The reason for this being flooding of their court systems as new incidents of theft, conflicts among families, increased domestic violence, fallouts between business partners, and other crimes continue to rise. In a nutshell, McFarlane states that the emerging crimes have increased so much that the criminal justice system in the US is being strained. This occurrence again, is attributed to the effects of the 2007 depression, which are being observed to this day. Luscombe (2008, n.p.) adds that Florida, which is amongst the biggest correctional facilities in the US, faced with a deficit budget of over 2 billion dollars has been housing prisoners in giant tents at nine of its facilities. It has one-hundred and thirty-seven facilities. In a summary, McFarlane (2012) states that, “The recession has complicated the overcrowding problems in prisons and courts, and thus, has placed a great strain on the American criminal justice system” (541). Conclusion Criminological theories are used in criminal investigations to explain the behaviour of criminals, understand why crimes happen, and what can be done to curb crime. In this study, the social disorganisation theory has been used to define the impact of the ongoing economic crisis. The theory states that depending on the provision of supportive settings or environments, crime levels will vary. In short, the theory implies that if a supportive environment is absent, people will be forced to deviate from acceptable social behaviour and indulge in crime. Economic depressions deplete normalcy in society by causing employing, increasing commodity prices, and generally imposing high costs of living. In the light of these, people are strained and as they seek success which in today’s world is measured in terms of economic ability, apply delinquent means of satisfying society. The study shows that economic crises lead to drug abuse, stealing, robbery, and unacceptable financial practices in organisations. On the contrary, economic crises are shown to reduce crime by keeping young adults under family supervision and inflicting strict regulations on financial bodies. Evidently, the relationship between crime and economic crises is a controversial matter. 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