How Close Is The Relationship Between
Social Deprivation and Crime?
Poverty is generally regarded as absolute deprivation. Poverty is defined as the lack of some fixed level of material goods necessary for survival and minimal well-being. Areas that rank high on measures of deprivation, such as high unemployment, low levels of income and poor quality accommodation, are often characterised by high levels of crime and disorder. This is because some individuals respond to the conditions they have to live in by resorting to property crime to address their grievances, whilst other people may develop a deep anger that can be released in violent ways. I think that the relationship between social deprivation and crime is relatively close. However not all of the people who commit crimes are necessarily socially deprived. There are also many other reasons as to why people commit crimes.
According to **** , "when unemployment goes up 1%, there is a 4% increase in homicides, a 6% increase in robberies, a 2% increase in burglaries and measurable effects on rape and other crimes."
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British Crime Survey Violence Rates (1981-2009)
Graph of crime rate with 2005 emphasizedThis backs up the idea that social deprivation bares some link to high crime rates. Also according to the same people, "the highest rates for domestic burglary, assault and wounding and robbery and theft from the person were found in socially and ethnically mixed areas with an overrepresentation of young single people and in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
Another factor, which affects crime rates, is location. For example the highest crime rates tend to be in residential areas around city centres. Manchester for example has some of the highest levels of recorded crime in the country, and alongside this, some of the highest levels of deprivation.
However when investigating youth crime the Home Office Research concludes that the strongest risk factors which related...