Ameliorating poverty and other social ills will surely lead to a decrease in crime. Discuss - Essay Example

iota of evidence to show that crime is in the best interest of the criminal, in the long run (Ludwig et al, 1999 p.3; Jargowsky and Rebecca, 2006 p.55). Understanding the root causes of crime has been the subject of countless discourse and criminological research studies over the years. Many of these documented research attempts have linked, directly or indirectly, crime to multiple adverse social, economic, cultural and family conditions. The socioeconomic angle to crime, especially, economic status, as reflected in poverty - poor living conditions, have shown a great correlation to criminality.

And as a result, improving living conditions by ameliorating poverty and the accompanying social ills are most likely to have a decreasing effect on crime rates in any society (The Root Causes of Crime, 1995 p.1-2). People who live under sub optimal conditions, lack a range of social and economic resources and opportunities are described as poor and thus living in poverty. The term poverty can be understood in a number of senses. However, in the most generalised sense, poverty is associated with the lack of material necessities, typically including the necessities of daily living such as good food, clothing, shelter and access to proper health care facility.

Poverty in this sense may be understood as the deprivation of essential goods and services. Although, in another sense, poverty may be viewed from the perspective of social needs, such as social exclusion, dependency and the ability to participate in the society, or in another way, the lack of sufficient income or wealth, such as the increasingly widening gap between the rich and the poor and the feelings of inequality that is festered by such feelings (Wikipedia, 2006). All of these understandings of poverty hold serious implication for crime and thus any efforts towards crime reduction.

Since early in the 1960s, a great number of social scientist have demonstrated that alleviating poverty would have a