A Criminological Examination

of the Causal Relationship

Between Poverty and Crime.

The relationship between poverty and crime is complex and simple at the same time. Some people feel that crime is often a direct result of inadequate legitimate opportunities while others think that crime is a result of moral defect, an inability to exist within the morays of organized society. In order to prove and or support a given position people will use varied methods of data collection and analysis in order to provide valid premises for their theories of crime and its causes. While not all data is universally applicable it does serve a definite purpose, providing the data was gained in as scientific a manner as humanly possible. In order to effectively demonstrate the points I have presented and the differing positions on the topic of crime and poverty that exists I will compare and contrast the lives of two fictional young men named Jerome A. Heywood and Johnny B. Rocket.

Jerome is an African American boy aged twelve years living in the Bronx borough of New York City. Jerome has never known his father who left when he was still an infant. His mother refers to his absent father as “that drunk fool” or some other equally derogatory term.

Johnny B. Rocket is an Anglo-American boy the same age as Jerome. He lives in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. His parents have been together for 15 years, his dad works as a lawyer for a consulting firm and his mother is active in the community.

We will examine the past, present and future of Jerome and Johnny from two perspectives, that of conflict theory and consensus theory. Conflict theory presents the organization of society as having been derived from the struggle between those with and those without power to create laws and enforce values. This power to create laws for the dominant members of society is often derived from money, religion, and physical force. Conflict theory would say that Jerome is at a disadvantage and Johnny is at an advantage. Due to a family history of poverty and deprivation Jerome is in a lower SES with few opportunities for legitimate gains. Johnny on the other hand is in the opposite situation. His upper class Anglo-American ancestors are the ones that created the very rules and values of society. These factors create an advantage for Johnny. This conflict of interest between Jerome and Johnny’s ancestors has created a differential of legitimate opportunity between the two boys. It is not to say that Jerome and Johnny will innately dislike each other, but conflict theorists would have us believe that the structure of society provided less opportunity for Jerome than Johnny. The inability to find work coupled with poor education and the prevalence of street crime increases the likelihood of Jerome becoming involved with criminal. One weakness of this argument is it negates idea of individual responsibility so often found in the common ideology of America.

It is often felt that America provides the opportunity for success if one is willing to work hard and be frugal. Yes, it is true that Jerome and Johnny have different opportunities, but that doesn’t justify Jerome’s anti-social behavior. Society has established the rules and values of the majority as law and these laws are to be followed. This idea of majority rule is the basis for the consensus perspective. The consensus perspective holds that the laws and values of society are created by a general agreement of the majority of the people in society. These laws are not absolute since the ideas and attitudes of the majority can change with time. The consensus view says that Jerome is an equal member of society. If he chooses to become a member of a criminal subculture he has decided of his own free will to disobey the law. The next question is what are the chances of Jerome assuming a criminal lifestyle compared to Johnny?

In order to determine the chances of Jerome getting involved with crime compared to Johnny we would utilize a self-report survey, such as the National Youth Survey (NYS). These surveys are most often conducted in a manner that allows the surveyed individual to remain anonymous. Self-report surveys ask questions like “how many times have you participated in a given criminal behavior”, then provide space for responses such as, never, once, 2-5 times and so on. These types of surveys provide a more accurate idea of crime and who commits it than arrest data. The problems with NYS include, the manner in which the surveys are conducted, varying interpretation of questions by the surveyed group, as well as over and under reporting by the surveyed group. When the surveys are conducted as scientifically as possible they are generally accepted as having the same margin of error as any other statistical method currently used. If the NYS had been conducted at the schools of Jerome and Johnny we would be able to compare the responses of their cohorts and determine if there is a higher chance of Jerome getting involved in crime. In another hypothetical consider what would happen if Jerome and Johnny both decided that robbing convenience stores was a good way to supplement their spending money. Who would be more likely to get arrested?

The FBI provides a tally of all arrests, reports and convictions for a group of crimes under the heading index crimes. These index crimes consist of, murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and the red headed stepchild arson. These index crimes are compiled in the Uniform Crime Report, commonly referred to as the UCR. The UCR is a valuable compilation of data concerning crime rates in a given locale; the crime rate is the number of crimes per 100,000 people. In order to determine the chance of arrest we would first look up arrests by age and sex. Next, determine what percentage of all arrests this amount is equivalent to. Then look at the US Census and determine the population of the area in which they reside and determine the number of arrests made on people of the same cohort as Johnny and Jerome. Since UCR also compiles a list of known robberies for the same areas we can then determine the percentage of robberies leading to arrest for a given area and the likelihood of our two boys getting arrested. Problems with the UCR include it only records eight types of crime and only records the worst crime committed during a crime spree. I had to use the example of robbery instead of drug dealing since the UCR does not provide statistics on drug dealing. Another problem with the UCR is the method used varies from department to department. In Jerome’s case if he is arrested for one of his robberies he probably be appointed a public defender and spend some time in jail. The same situation for Johnny might mean an arrest but his parents could afford a high priced attorney and he would likely get probation. The UCR fails to account for situations like this when tallying convictions so a disproportionate amount of minorities are represented in the conviction to arrest ratio. Assuming that Jerome and Johnny both decide to be law abiding, what are their chances of becoming a victim?

There is yet another source of information to address the occurrences of crime victimization. A commonly used source of victim information is the NCVS, or National Crime Victimization Survey, which is filled out by victims of crime. This survey would ask Jerome’s mom and Johnny’s dad, along with thousands of other heads of household, if anyone in their house had ever been robbed, provided that they knew about it. Once it is compiled we could examine the results of the NCVS and determine if people of Jerome or Johnny’s cohort have a greater chance of being robbed. Jerome and his friends are more likely to become victims of a violent crime than Johnny and his compatriots. A weakness of the NCVS is that the head of the household is asked the questions. This decreases the likelihood of honesty concerning issues of domestic violence and victimization and accuracy since crimes may be unknown to him/her. If we further examine the relationship between poverty, crime, race and location we will find different results depending on the data set used.

If we were to examine arrest data provided in the year 2000 UCR we would find that the overall crime rate for suburban areas is higher than that of urban areas by 57 incidents per 100,000 people (FBI, UCR, pg. 67). It is assumed that the suburbs are safer than the metropolitan areas. Could it be that Johnny’s neighbors are just as bad as Jerome’s when it comes to committing crime? By neglecting to account for the ecological fallacy we might assume so. A better way to determine who commits what crime and where is by conducting both offender and victim self-report surveys. Is it possible that people from the metropolitan areas are going to the suburbs to commit their crimes where the pickings are better? Perhaps the people in the suburbs are better able to conceal their criminal activities allowing the media to perpetuate the minority criminal stereotype.

Crime has been explained in terms of class struggle or culture struggle. In reality it is a product of people in power trying to maintain their authority while satiating the moral and cultural values of the dominant society. In order to better understand the complex relationship between poverty and crime we must utilize all of the tools at our disposal. These include the UCR to understand crime, arrest and conviction trends, the NYS to understand offending patterns of youth, the NCVS to discover the true victimization rate. By combining all our resources we can hope to see the dark figure of crime.

Works Cited

FBI. UCR, 2000. 10 Feb. 2002.

Available: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_00/00crime2.pdf

Works Consulted

Jary, David, Jary, Julia. The Harper Collins Dictionary of Sociology.

New York: Harper, 1991

National Institute of Mental Health. NYS. 10 Feb. 2002.

Available: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/SAMHDA/nys.html

Siegel, Larry J. Criminology 6^th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1997

United States Census Bureau. Census 2000 data for New York. 9 Feb. 2002.

Available: http://www.census.gov/census2000/states/ny.html

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime and Victims Statistics. 9 Feb. 2002.

Available: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm