Theories of crime in America and constitutional principles

Several hypothetical factors point to the reasons why education causes a lower crime rate. Increased earnings will make crime less preferred by people due to their mental calculation of the amount of money which would be lost during prison time. Equally education reduces impatience or unnecessary risk taking, which translates to a reduced criminal tendency. The three literature sources considered by (Lochner and Moretti) all gave the same inference: education considerably lessens crime rate. This discovery has huge impacts on various types and intensities of criminal activity. There is a similarity between the impact of education on rates of imprisonment and frequency of capture of criminals as well as self-confessed offences. In order to reduce this to the barest minimum, the government could enact proven and specific laws and guidelines. This research could be useful to government regulators in crafting their anti-crime systems and determining their required budgets. Apart from this, this research is still useful in elaborating on the topic of education being an effective and substitute anti-crime agent. If the College Graduation Ratio-which is the percentage of graduating students from first degree (tertiary ISCED 5A) programmes based on the number of people who are at the average graduating age in a population-is analysed from 1998 -- 2012, a clear picture is seen. Normally in developed countries, the domestic income produced, also known as the GDP can be diverted towards criminal rehabilitations and strengthening of law enforcement agencies, unlike developing countries. Thus, the GDP produced by developed nations could be channelled towards properly developing rules and systems aimed at reducing criminal activities (Gonzalaez).

Crime cannot be truly referred to as an "urban problem". An analysis of police data from 2005 showed that the smaller urban regions experienced more levels of crime than the major urban regions. Rural areas, however, had the least crime rates. Analysing the situation in the Quebec region, it is discovered that criminal acts were most frequently reported from the major urban regions. These regions experienced the highest numbers of car thefts and robberies. Specifically, the frequency of robbery in these regions were almost three times that experienced in the smaller urban regions and about ten times that experienced in rural communities. Altogether, the frequency of violent crime, however, were least recorded in the major urban regions. The rural communities recorded the most number of homicides in 2005, a trend which has been consistent over the last 10 years. Despite this, the rural communities still had the least rates of robberies, crime generally, car theft and property crime. Notwithstanding the variation in the crime levels of their regions, people residing in the rural, smaller urban and major urban regions showed a high likelihood, measured at over 90% to claim satisfaction of their perceived safety levels. Those living in the smaller urban regions and the rural areas, though, showed a higher likelihood of praising the work of the police than the major urban region dwellers (Francisco and Chenier).

In order to enhance the systems and laws targeting this part of the country, it will be very helpful to analyse potential obstacles to the smooth running of these solutions. An analysis of the current education statistics in Quebec indicates that young adults who have a record of criminality often prefer a school environment which provides adults with the normal secondary education. The "Youth Solidarity" program, which is a form of social welfare program for people up to 24 years, released a report which showed that among the clients on their list, over 59% of the younger adults preferred the adult sector to others for furthering their education. Several studies have discovered that transition programs such as the TIP (transition to independence process) scheme and its rules are very effective. Every single one of them indicated general improvements for the young men and women who went through the TIP scheme or its similar version. In Quebec, several of these young adults try to secure at least a diploma while some others compensate themselves for the time spent while in the adult's educational environment. These environments have high tendencies to be the life changing experience a lot of these emerging adults living with problems need. In a move to optimize the environments for this, a number of obstacles to effective service delivery have to be surmounted. A good starting point would be the active search for more knowledge on the subjects as well as their criminal backgrounds and using this, redefine their erroneous opinions about young adults in school environments (Marcotte).

2. Dr. Carson discusses America and problems result when you have a society that is ignorant and not informed? That we need a culture of "informed populace" in our society? What does he mean by these statements? What does he suggest? Do you agree or disagree with his statements? Whether you agree or disagree, be sure to support your position through the use of statistics and research.

Another point raised by Dr. Carson is the way people show no sort of concern on the political events taking place in the country as well as the untrue projections of advancement. During elections, several voices are heard encouraging people to cast their votes as well as condemning political candidates who allegedly aren't working to better the situation of the masses. Despite these, only a small number of these advocates point out that it might be best to keep our votes to ourselves instead of participating in an exercise we are not knowledgeable of. A critical analysis of our poor knowledge on the internal events of politics is not due to trust issues, but rather it is caused by rationalization on the part of the voters themselves and the enormity and complicated nature of contemporary governments. Due to this, it could be quite impossible to truly overcome this problem of poor political knowledge and an inference we can draw is that it could benefit us all if we dabbled less with the polls and rather channel that energy into active pursuits of knowledge (Somin)

'Trust is rising in the elite or "informed public" group -- those with at least a college education, who are very engaged in media, and have an income in the top 25%. However, in the 'mass population' (the remaining 85% of our sample), trust levels have barely budged since the Great Recession'

• Richard Edelman (The New Landscape of Information: 3 Consequences of the Trust Disparity)

From the present-day statistics, the disparity in trust between the masses and the informed public rests at around 19%. This is due to the complete acceptance of adverse opinion by people such as disbelief on the part of consumers or distrust in political matters.

3. The speech also suggests that there is a division within our country that is dividing America. He specifically cites the political class and the friction created by the media. Looking at the media specifically, how do you think the media portrays crime in America? Is it an accurate portrayal? Do different media outlets or organization report or fail to report certain events that are important to crime in America? Give a specific example. Under the theory of learning how does the media play a role? Explain.

A term popular to psychologists is "backfire effect" and this explains that normal expressions have a higher probability to be seen as correct by humans as against uncommon expressions. A continuous listening of crime-related news from media houses would lead to total belief and trust in their reports. Factoring in the normal human dread of criminal acts and the mind-set that crime is on the rise and people begin to create opinions (Brown).

The FBI in 2013 published crime-related data which clearly showed that crime was rather reducing with brutal criminal acts experiencing a 4.4% drop. All other forms of crime also experienced decreases with property crimes dropping by 4.1 % while car theft, arson and burglary also reduced. One would need to go back to the '60s and '70s to find crime drop numbers in the big cities such as these. Homicides recorded in New York reduced by over 85 % between the years 1990 to 2014. Detroit and Chicago are well known for their high levels of crime, but 2014 turned out to be a record low in this regard. The number of brutal crimes and homicide in both cities has not been this good since the '70s (Brown).

Criminologists who are carrying out experimental analysis on individual or group influences often see the media as a major sector to be studied. They strongly believe that closing the research on this subject matter would be an untimely act and they tend to aggressively broadcast how their research could benefit everyone. The results derived from these media examinations show that the major factors affecting the studied phenomena are present in other niches. An alternative method of determining the secondary function the media plays in postulating the causative facts of criminality is via thorough examination of literature on criminal tendencies, in which the media wasn't fully discussed and is only talked about when societal values and immoral events come up (Birkbeck).

4. Research statistics on education as it relates to crime & poverty. If you were the leader of your state/country what would you advocate to increase education?

It is a well-known fact that crime is present in its various categories in every country. Suggestions of links between poverty and crime are certain to attract angry reactions and ethical oppositions. This phenomenon alone is enough to suggest that the poor have criminal genes. A perspective is the fact that crime theories exist whose bases are found in societal trends and actions. Specifically, ecology, opportunity and strain philosophies often attempt to create connections between the socioeconomic states of a person or the society and criminal tendencies. In contrast, Social learning and control philosophies try to connect the above situation to the inability of the society to bring criminal behaviours under check and the methods by which a person gets engaged in crime. The level of societal development is very crucial and it is measured via the condition of education, social wealth and employment among others. With a basis in simple human thinking and general opinion, a connection can be proved to exist between crime and per capita income in a city. As the per capita income rises, normally, there should be an increase in the financial stability of the city's people and thus the reasons for criminal acts are highly lessened. Analysis of data has showed that robberies have been mostly instigated by poverty. The biggest data backing of this trend, derived from the analysis of data on the influence of education on crime in India, showed that a 10% rise in per capita budget aimed at education brought about a decrease of 9.2-11.2% in property crime levels (Bharadwaj).

5. Discuss the role of the family and crime? Find statistics relating to single parent households and the correlation to either an increase or decrease in crime. Support your position.

Research has proven that family make-up has a huge influence on delinquent behaviours in young adults. However, the effect of cohabitation on this topic has not enjoyed the attention of researchers. This paper aims to identify any differences in delinquent behaviours based on family structure and also to identify how parental control actions causes differences in delinquent behaviours based on family structure. Two major factors which affect juvenile delinquency include the family make up a child grows in and the closeness parents have with them as they become young adult children. Just in a similar way to the trends seen in juvenile delinquency, family makeup has experienced a number of striking changes in the last few decades and today, it has developed several variations. Young adults find themselves in several types of families, some with single parents while others with married or merely cohabitating parents. The kinds of families which children develop in as well as the kind of social atmosphere they settle into have great influences on their quality of life. Normally, the children who are growing in unconventional family setups have greater tendencies to develop a number of unsocial attributes such as engaging in delinquent activities when compared with those who grow under married parents. The wide variety of family make-ups means children receive a broad range of levels of control, concern, guidance and closeness from their fathers and mothers. This can also be a cause of delinquent behaviours among young adults (Parks).

According to the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, the best factor for measuring the level of serious crime in a region is the number of families without fathers. A father is meant to secure the family, provide financial help, guide the male children aright and lower the stress suffered by mothers. These responsibilities of a father are more pronounced in families who have young adult males as these are the group with the highest delinquent tendencies. Children who develop under single parents have greater tendencies to join gangs, visit reform facilities, become hooked on illicit drugs, get sent out of school or commit juvenile murders. A single parent will not be able to give the child the time, care and direction he/she badly needs such as constant moral guidance (Maginnis).

6. Provide a thought provoking question for discussion and then attempt to respond to that question.

Question -- Crime is still present in developed countries. Can we lessen crime via a higher emphasis on education?

Reducing crime is a priority of governments across the world with a major reason for this being the huge social and economic advantages it has. Several studies on the basic causes of crime have given a wide variety of methods by which it can be effectively reduced. A huge percentage of studies on this topic supports a higher budget for facilitating anti-crime resources e.g. latest anti-crime gadgets or higher number of cops etc. as well as development of rules and guidelines aimed at reducing crime. The other studies were more particular about criminal behaviour and try to identify which particular behaviour was a factor for higher criminal tendency. Thus, rules which positively influence these identified behaviours can help in reducing crime as long as they are enforced properly (Marie, Vujic and Machin).

A really interesting discovery is the inverse relationship of criminality with high educational levels. Thus, it could be crucial to apply this knowledge in addressing crime rate. We can confirm the influence education has on criminal tendencies via alterations in the mandatory school advancement age requirements in order to take into account the internal variables in education. The discovery of a connection strengthens our belief that our results in this research will be very important in the lasting measures taken to combat crime. A good example are the programs which reduces the cost of educational and human investments as these have high tendency to cause a lasting reduction of crime rates via the rise in skills. Therefore, emphasis should be placed on educating criminals and potential criminals, as this could be a very effective policy in achieving the aim which is negligible crime rates. (Machin, Marie and Vujic).

References

Bharadwaj, Ashish. "Is poverty the mother of crime?" Atlantic Review of Economics (2014).

Birkbeck, Christopher. "Media Representations of Crime and Criminal Justice." Criminology and Criminal Justice, Communities and Crime (2014). Online.

Brown, Brittini. Is the Media Altering Our Perceptions of Crime? 11 March 2015. 5 June 2017.

Francisco, Joycelyn and Christian Chenier. "A comparison of large urban, small urban and rural crime rates." Canadian Center for Justice Statistics (2007).

Gonzalaez, Alma. "Education: The Secret to Crime Reduction?. " PhD Thesis. 2015.

Lochner, Lance and Enrico Moretti. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports." 2003.

Machin, Stephen, Olivier Marie and Suncica Vujic. "The Crime Reducing Effect of Education. " CEP Discussion Paper No 979 (2010).

Maginnis, RL. "Single-Parent Families Cause Juvenile Crime." National Crime Reference Justice Service (1997).

Marcotte, Julie. "Quebec's adult educational settings: Potential turning points for emerging adults?. " Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy (2008). Document.

Marie, Olivier, Suncicia Vujic and Stephen Machin. "Crime Reducing Effect of Education." The Economic Journal (2011): 463 - 484.

Parks, Alisha. "The Effects of Family Structure on Juvenile Delinquency." Electronic Theses and Dissertations. (2013). Thesis.

Raffo, Carlo, et al. Education and poverty. Document. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007.

Somin, Ilya. Political ignorance around the world. 3 November 2014. 5 June 2017.

The New Landscape of Information: 3 Consequences of the Trust Disparity. 29 February 2016. 5 June 2017.