It has been discussed often that there is more crime in societies that are poor. One would wonder what is it about poverty that makes people hurt each other. This thought led me to do some research and exploration in this area and what I found triggered some thought.
There have been studies that have proven that poverty in itself does not trigger or correlate with crime. Crime or more specifically male homicides are not high among societies that are generally poor. Neither is male homicide high among societies where people are generally rich. It is when there is a gap between the economic status of people that male homicides are high! The study also showed that the higher the differential between the rich and the poor, the higher the occurrence of these male homicides.
So, poverty does not cause crime and economic inequality does. Probably because there is an element of envy and questions about what the other person has done to be in an economically better state. These questions are fairly existential when one considers that we do not have any control over the kind of family we are born into, including the economic status of the family.
In the past, we could have expected the rich societies to function in their own way, leaving the poor societies to fend for themselves. The societies that had this inequality struggled with their own crime rates.
Today, however, media exposure has removed this artificial isolation that was caused due to geographies and boundaries. The world has literally become one single stage. The lifestyles of the rich and famous are only too easily available to see for those who are less fortunate.
Not only has this caused immensely high levels of materialism in the world, but it has also caused high levels of crime that we are witnessing in the world today! Hmmmm…….
I am no believer in the extreme left-wing ideologies. But I do believe that this effect of widespread exposure needs to be addressed in some way. Any ideas how?
But sometimes, the power of a person also blinds them into crime. I guess, most of the time than economic inequality. What do you think of power as a main role?!
Power absolutely plays a role in crime. I don’t think that there can be a doubt about that. The reason I have taken a day to respond to you is because I was thinking about ‘how’ and why power corrupts us and leads us to crime.
I think this:
Power comes from an innate understanding of one’s own vulnerability. Because we know that we are vulnerable, we also become aware that other people are vulnerable too. This gives us the opportunity to exploit the weaknesses of the other person, something we humans seem to be very capable of. However, what interests me is that one needs to be in a manner of speaking uncomfortable or insecure about one’s own weakness to lead oneself into the situation where one gives into crime. It is like we say – those who bully at school are really actually mentally weak! The same rule applies to adults too!
The other way in which power contributes to crime is in the realm of intellectual power (and I have a part 3 of Killing the Intellectual coming up with this theory). When we start to think that we are powerful because we are intellectually superior to others, we start to believe a little too much in our own theories. The rational and intellectual mind starts to close. In extreme cases, this leads to a totalitarian kind of belief – and if this trait comes along with charisma and the power to rouse multitudes, it leads to people like Stalin and Hitler.
So yes, power does lead to crime. My article on poverty and its role in crime discussed one of the aspects that is so often quoted as the reason for increased crime.
Shiwani