According to the latest research in the United Kingdom by the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), people residing in high-end residential areas have been beneficiaries of the crime rate falling in Britain compared to those living in poorer establishments or regions (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics). The following paper aims to delineate on the social class difference in patterns in crime in the United Kingdom based on evidential statistics and sociological perspectives.
The assessment of the crime report indicates that crime rate has been lower in England and Wales since the 1980s. The report suggests that in 7, 040 areas surveyed between 2011 and 2017, crime has fallen by 8%. However, the startling realisation is that the wealthier areas experienced a reduced rate of up to 12% whereas the more impoverished regions experienced a reduced crime rate of 3% (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics). The report, also, highlights that the more deprived areas have a crime rate of 83% higher compared to the more affluent regions of England and Wales between 2011 and 2015 (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics).
The lesson to be drawn from this is that the research indicates a correlation between the wealthy and the poor regarding crime reduction. About the theorist Karl Max, he proposed that crime rate was in line with the capitalistic view of economic competition market paradigm. Capitalism is an economic structure where the resource utilisation and generation of income segregated to private ownership, unlike communism. Within the competitive system, there is the encouragement of aggression and emphasis on the importance of winning which results in the need for individuals to access personal gain as much as they can. Moreover, the investment in law regulations does not limit the endeavours; it only makes it worse.
As a result, Charles Murray, a political scientist and a sociologist, indicates that there has been an aggressiveness in the emergence of modern western societies that are blameful for the rise in crime rates. He proposes that the lower income bracket have certain tendencies and behaviours that make them act in confident unlawful manner. For instance, about the England and Wales crime report, there is a clear understanding that financial inequality is the primary driver to the difference in crime rates in the more impoverished regions compared to those in the wealthier areas (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics).
Similar remarks are shared by Max Weber who supports Karl Max in his pure ideology that predisposes the action of the wealthy and that of the poor. In more ways than one, the monopoly that comes with resource allocation for maximisation of profits shared among the prosperous and not equitable to the poor. The rational-logic to this is that it eventually leads to a greedy society that is unwilling to cope with its emerging issues such as that seen in the United Kingdom under crime rates irregularities. According to the statistics, imprisoned men in the United Kingdom prisons are recorded to have dropped out of school at tender ages of between 14 and 15 years of age (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics).
The working classes of wealthy and affluent are more educated compared to those in the more impoverished regions in the United Kingdom. Gang crime in the most impoverished areas is higher compared to that in the more affluent areas of England and Wales. The opportunities provided for in the working-class districts are not the same as those in the more impoverished regions (Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics). According to Victor Branford’s sociological view, is that society is subjective to collectivism and liberalism (Webster and Kingston). However, when it comes to liberalism, the United Kingdom is profound to attenuate its traditional aspects of how wealth is to be distributed primarily to the poor. Hence, the conceptualisation of how collectivism comes to light is remarkable regarding capitalism and crime rates.
The argument by Karl Marx and Max Weber on socialism indicates that low-skilled labour can be tedious and repetitive and can lead to dead-end jobs. The result is that the lower sub-class subculture provides an alternative way of living with the situation of finding satisfaction outside work (Webster and Kingston). In most cases, the rampancy in gang-related violence and increase in targeted group violence has been on the rise in England and Wales for the past twenty-five years. For instance, a more straightforward explanation to how capitalism works, the functionalism between the poor and the rich is that while the middle-class and the upper-class societies become successful in making profits through venture capitalism, the poorer engage in a more relaxed form of generating profits (Webster and Kingston).
The result is that there has been an increase in the number of people convicted of crimes from the more impoverished regions in the United Kingdom compared to those in the wealthier areas. Nonetheless, under the report, CSEW, there is need to place more surveillance in the more impoverished regions compared to the more prosperous regions to curb the rise in crime rates in the coming years. Regulatory bodies advice and warn in most cases rather than punish is a proper process for reducing crime rates.
Work Cited
Crime and Justice - Office for National Statistics. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.
JRF_Final_Poverty_and_Crime_Review_May_2014.Pdf. http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/71188/1/JRF_Final_Poverty_and_Crime_Review_May_2014.pdf. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.
