Why the Crime Rates in the US Cities Is Higher than in Small Towns - Research Paper Example

Crime rates in large cities are much more than in small cities, towns or even in rural areas. This is a situation that has been pervasive for many years now. This is a paper that is trying to find out some of the cities in United States of America where crime rates are high. It is also meant to know how racial ethnicity has affected the rate of crime and why it has affected the rate of crime. The paper attempts to explain this by utilizing various victimization data, uniform crime reports, and various evidences that have been given concerning criminal behavior. This is a research that is based purely in the American states where the rate of crime has advanced over the years (Blumstein 24). There are numerous pecuniary benefits for crimes which can explain about thirty percent of the overall effect of crime in the cities. However, this is much less than crimes connected with certain other urban areas which involve some non pecuniary crimes. These non pecuniary crimes include assault or rape. In urban areas, there are there are lower cases of arrests reported for such crimes and there is also lower probability of recognition. This is what explains the twenty percent of urban crimes effects. There is also the observable characteristic of crime which involves individuals and cities only and this make up about fifty percent of the overall crimes in America. However, those characteristics that seem crucial are those that reflect social influences, reflect tastes, and family structure (Kozol 36). Therefore, it is ultimate to say that urban crime premium is associated with the above mentioned characteristics. However, all these characteristics of crimes are connected with perpetrators of crimes who live in the cities. The prospects in the labor market who include young and unskilled men has gone down since 1980s to date. There is a reserve pattern that is usually shown by the rate of crime which was in the rise, in the 1980s. However, in the years of 1990s the rate of crime started coming down. The changes in the crime rate in the United States of America can be explained by changes in the labor market opportunities. It has been found out that the highest numbers of perpetrators of crimes are young people who are not skilled. Therefore, there is a connection between the two trends and it is crucial to find out whether the labor market conditions for people who are not skilled are linked to the trends in crime (Tolley 107). There have been numerous explanations from economists who typically examine crime rates in United States of America. This is done by examining how the propensity to commit this crime responds to the expected benefits or the costs of illegal activities. There are indirect costs to these crimes, and there are also various opportunity costs, which work in the legal sectors. However, it would be inconclusive to say that the number of joblessness in United States of America is triggering the rate of crime. The effect of wages on crime has been over the years ignored and surprisingly, wages maybe an excellent measure of labor market prospects for upcoming criminals this has been proven by the fact that unemployment is highly short lived in many parts of the globe, and most especially in America. This is the key reason as to why numerous individuals have to depend on different jobs probably two or three at the same time. Given the long lasting effects of investing in an individual’s capital which can be done specifically in the crime sector, the rate of crime should respond to the long term changes on the labor market. The high reduction in the permanent wages for many people, especially the uneducated employees has encouraged the rise in the rate of crime as people look for ways of meeting their expenses. Crime trends The crime data that are reported to the FBI in the American nation by the local authorities mostly come from the uniform crime reports. Offenses and arrests are made or reported for an individual’s violent crimes such as murders, rape, assault, or robbery. There is also the property crime which is reported, and it includes any crime that has to do with larceny, burglary, and auto theft. The property crime together with violence indicates the aggregate individuals’ crime while there has to be the overall crime index aggregates all possible individual crimes. However, there are all the reasons as to why individuals have to be aware of the self reported crime data. This is because not all assults are taken to the police force, and this has alleviated the occurrences of crimes since the criminals feel that they may go without being punished. In addition, the methods that are used in the gathering and exposure of data differ according to the various local authorities in America. This is another factor that has alleviated the rate of crime in many cities, in America. Crime has been a significant concern in the United States of America with extremely high rates of the crime being reported in the twentieth century. This is unlike in Europe where the rate of crime at that time was low. In some American cities such as Chicago, high rates of crime were reported back in the early twentieth century. Homicides were highly reported at the time in that city, and this was no different from other American cities such as New York. The rate of crime in the American cities was much higher as compared to those in the European cities such as London. This was so even when the European cities had higher populations than the American cities. However, looking at the positive side of these crimes, since the colonial era, the rate of homicides crime in America had been going down tremendously. However, towards the late years of the twentieth century, the rate of crime had gone up in a significant way. This was more evident in the rate of property crime, which was much, more than any other crime. However, at some point in the mid 1990s, the rate of crime started declining again in America. There are a number of theories which explain this, and they include an increase in the number of police in all cities of America. There is also a hypothesis that suggests a reduction in the lead exposure and the population in all the American prisons has increased by more than fifty percent. Then again, at some point there was a rapid increase in the crack of cocaine whereby it market grew drastically. This led to a decrease in the rate of crime as most of the young and unskilled people engaged in the cracking of cocaine business (Glaeser 64). However, it was not until in the twenty first century in the year 2010 when the rate of crime in America had gone down. All of the American cities were free of any crimes both the property crimes and the violent crimes were a thing of precedent. For the preceding forty years, the American authorities together with their federal bureau of investigation had a rough time trying to tame down the increasing rate of crime. Their success came in the twenty first century where all these cities were free of any crimes. Then again, there was also a recorded decrease in the rate of homicide which was high in the early 1990s and had gone down drastically in 2008. This is a more than fifty percent decline which is a positive impact in the American continent (Hawke 17). There are more than six million violent crimes that are committed in America each year. This is statistics that have been provided by the American justice department, which is in, charge of all the records of crimes in all the United States of America’s cities. More than seventy percent of those arrested for having committed various crimes are Hispanic or white persons. Twenty percent of those arrested represents black people or black, and Hispanic criminals. This shows that at least fifty percent of the crimes committed in American cities are cleared through arrests and other numerous exceptional means. Conversely, most of the crimes are committed by male individuals while the female persons who commit these crimes are few. In fact, the female offenders are more than fifty percent the male offenders. The most frequent crime in almost all cities of America is murder whereby more than ten thousand murders are committed annually. The number of reports which indicate crimes committed on rape or any other sexual harassment as published the United States of America’s justice department is numerous. They indicate that of those crimes about sixty percent are committed by the whites, thirty percent by blacks, and about ten percent by the Asians and the American Indians. However, the Hispanics are not anywhere in these statistics, and this means that only a few of them commit these crimes. Many people living in America may fall victims to the diverse crimes that are steadfast in America. However, those that are highly likely to fall victims of these crimes are those who are disadvantaged financially. Most of them are below twenty five years of age, and they are not whites. Most of them are blacks or Hispanics since they have few opportunities of acquiring appropriate paying jobs, unlike the whites. In addition to all these, the number of crimes that are committed towards the homeless in America is rising at a hasty rate. In fact, this crime is more in the past few years than the way it was in the earlier years. Those that do not have their own homes are the persons who are the highest criminal victims, but most of these cases go unreported to the crime authorities. However, it is not until recently that the crimes against the homeless have gained national attention in America. This was an effort created by the national coalition for the homeless together with academic researchers who showed how homeless individuals fall victims to these crimes. This was done by forming deliberate attacks against any person who committed crimes against the homeless in the streets. This was after more than one hundred homeless people were found murdered by the homeless persons in what is known as the hate killings. Out of these about seventy of them had been killed out of racism and religious hatred, and it was not fair for them. There is some similarity between the crimes done in America and those other nations whose wealth and development are almost equal to those in the United States. This is especially in such nations as Canada where the definitions of crimes are almost similar to those of United States (Gould 45). The racial divide in America has been brought about by punishment and the rate of crime in America. Racism has significant effects on the rate of crime in America whereby because of the increased discrimination, many people are resulting to crimes in order to avenge for the discrimination. For instance, due to the humiliation that blacks in America go through due to discrimination, most of them have resulted to crimes. For instance, it is difficult for a black [person to get employment in America. Even with an appropriate education and also necessary skills there are some companies which purely employ white people. This means that the blacks cannot get employed in such organizations. On the other hand, there are some schools where black kids cannot enroll for education. This is because these schools are purely for the white kids and this means that most of the black kids go to schools that do not perform well. Therefore, this shows that most of these children either acquire little or no education and before they are the age of twenty five years, they are already committing crimes (Kender 89). They commit these crimes in order to find their basic necessities, and this is the basis as to why they are further into property crimes than the other crimes. On the other hand, racism has a noteworthy effect on the augment in the rate of crime in America because there is a general believe that blacks are criminals. Therefore, for most of the crimes that happen in America, the highest percentage of the suspects is the blacks. However, this has proven that this is not entirely true for there are those crimes that are committed by whites’ in large percentages. The blacks commit these crimes in low percentages. This means that it is only a believe that racial ethnicity is related to crimes committed in America. However, in the recent years, the supreme courts in the United States of America mutually with their civil movements have made various discriminations on the basis of race unconstitutional. Therefore, many of the individuals who are in detention on the basis of racial ethnicity are no longer denied bail especially if they were charged indiscriminately. On the other hand if they were charged without any legal representation or when they are charged or punished disproportionately. Today, people in America are protected by the law enforcement practices and policies which emphasize on professionalism and accountability (Levitt, 163). Therefore, police officers are not supposed to arrest anyone on the basis of racial ethnicity because anyone can commit a crime, and this is not based on their race or color of the skin. Works Cited Blumstein, Alfred, and Joel Wallman. The crime drop in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Print. Glaeser,Edward L. and B.Sacerdote "Why Is There More Crime in Cities ? " NBER Working Paper no. 5430, 1996 Gould, Eric D. Bruce A. Weinberg and David B. Mustard. "Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997" "Review of Economics and Statistics 84 (2002), pp. 45-51 Hawke, David Freeman. Everyday life in early America. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Print. Kender, Suzanne Elizabeth. Crime in America. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1996. Print. Kozol, Jonathan. Rachel and her children: homeless families in America. New York: Crown Publishers, 1988. Print. Levitt, Steven D. "Understanding Why Crime Fell in 1990s: Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not" Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (2004), pp. 163-190 Tolley, George S., and Douglas B. Diamond. The Economics of urban amenities. New York: Academic Press, 1982. Print. Read More