Issue of Income Inequality and Crime-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Relationship between Income Inequality and Crime. Answer: Introduction The relationship between income inequality and occurrence of crime has always been subject of study. Crime rates can depend on penalties associated with and it can also depend on the differentiation between achievement of crime and opportunity cost (Brush, 2017). The concept of relative deprivation tells that inequality can create social tension as the poor can feel dispossessed. The feeling of unfairness and disadvantage can lead to seek the satisfaction and compensation, including crime. The concept of income inequality and crime can be described from both economic and sociological aspect. The aim of the study is to establish the relationship between income inequality and crime. In the first part of the study, objectives and research questions will be given and in the literature review section, scholarly papers will be reviewed based on the topic. In the methodology and data collection section, the process of data collection will be described. Project Objectives The objectives of the project are: To find out the reasons behind rise in the income inequality in deprived sections To identify the types of crime associated to income inequality To establish the relationship between income inequality and crime To suggest some possible ways to solve the issue of income inequality and crime Project scopes The scope of the project is to highlight the relationship between income inequality and crime through using various secondary sources including first-hand data. This study would explore various scholarly articles of economics, sociology and psychology to underpin the concept of crime and income inequality. The study would strive to find out the psychology of the people at bottom of the income distribution and the societal pressure to them to gain in the status competition. The main argument of the study would be based on psycho-sociological perspectives of the risk-seeking behaviour of the lower income class people. Literature review Rise in the income inequality and reasons behind risk-taking activities among people Changes in the income distribution is one such reason behind the income inequality and in the developed countries, the income inequality has grown since 1970s (Box, 2017). The reasons of the income inequality are manifold and it is the interaction of multiple factors. In the developed countries, the globalisation snatches the chance of employment to the low skill labourers. The people are losing their jobs because of extreme competition and most importantly, they are moving to low-wage areas such as Asian countries and other emerging economies, like Brazil, Egypt, India and China. Else, the people have to choose the way of risk-taking activities like criminal offence to maintain their livelihoods. As pointed out By Kennedy et al., (2017), in recent time, the rapid progress in information technology leads to increase demand of educated and high skilled labours, therefore income distribution only favours to the skilled brains. The uneducated, less fortune and poor people do not get any chance to improve their condition and they do not get any alternative source of income to earn their livelihood. In psycho-sociological perspective, the rich people get various extra advantages in life, like good accommodation, standard living, convenient leisure and benefits of higher communication among the society, these factors award the rich with the tag of winner and runners-up do not have any proviso to improve their lifestyles (Patterson, 2017). Minority communities, people with low socio-economic conditions, people from disadvantaged background are often treated unfairly and they are excluded from the modern flow of life. Sometimes, these often lead to the anti-social activities for out of frustration. Of late, in many underdeveloped economy countries, many people come as an immigrant to developed countries. In such cases, the immigrant-less educated people do not get any means of earning the money and continue their living. They have the only option left to do risk-taking activities to snatch money. Desperate needs to cope up with the modern lifestyle and poverty-stricken create the consequence of gradual tendency to commit a crime (Hipp, 2017). For instance, in the US, before 1965, the number of dropouts was higher and most of the young generation joined in the criminal activities with the immigrant people, many of the American-born young generation became low-skilled workers (Guiterrez et al., 2013). Moreover, in many instances, it has been observed that power of Trade Unions is losing and its importance loses has been degrading. In a previous time, Unions try to balance the wages and the societal norm was followed for all. Now, the low-skilled labours do not chance to work in t he factories and most of the time, they are forced to leave the works by managerial forces (Kakwani, 2016). Therefore, they have to join the illegal activities and criminal offences to earn the medium of livelihoods. There are various functions that are associated with the crime, differences in monetary valuation, inflation, consumer price index, purchasing power and faster expansion in price and wealth distribution gap. Additionally, states must start welfare policies for the backward class and states need to facilitate the labour laws, equal rights laws and tax laws to bring the backward class in the mainstream. Types of crime associated with income inequality As stated by Olson, Herman Zanna (2014), crime is one such function of the individuals calculations in expected utility of crime with comparing the same resources and the same time to pursue the legal working or activities. Therefore, it is obvious that many poor individuals intend to do the illegal activities as they see that legal activities do not offer benefits to them in short-term perspectives Braithwaite (2013). There are many such penalties and laws are there to prevent the crime, however, the societal nature and psychology of the individuals pressurise the people to do such works as individual think non-criminal activities can be accepted if the benefit of crime is lower than poverty status of them. The crimes of the poor individuals who have been the victim of unequal income follow the mechanism of emotional motivation and rational calculation. The crimes of the people can be divided into two types, property theft (robbery, burglary, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft) and the violent crimes (murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault). As opposed by Chiu Madden (2015), a country's economic growth can impact in lowering the crime occurrences as the growth of GDP can reduce the income inequality gap. A rich economy can alleviate the poverty level. International Statistics on Crime and Justice published a report in 2015 and this dataset showed the various crime incidences in developed and developing countries, assault, murder, homicide, robbery and rape. Moreover, most of the incidences of homicide were found in the Africans regions and American part, the lowest homicide rate was found in the European regions (Choe, 2013). Income inequality and crimes are increasing in the Latin American sections and most of the incidents in this part recorded as gang activities, organised crime and drug trafficking. The incidence of homicide was increased from 6.6 to 7 within 2012-2015; this homicide is included unlawful death and killing of persons (Hsieh Pugh, 2013). Income inequality, crime level and murder can be observed as reciprocal in trend as in African regions have highest rates of population and highest income inequality. In American region, Mexico is worst in income inequality and it has been facing the issuing law and justice system, crimes and drug trafficking. On the other side, United Nations published a report of incidence of rape in 65 countries and it showed that approximately, 250,000 cases of rape were recorded by the jurisdiction annually. This incidence is prevalent mainly in African regions and American regions where inequality of income is shown (Dahlerg Gustavsson, 2015). It has been also notified that Sweden is a good performer in economic basis and inequality of income is not prevalent, however, it registered the highest rape incidence in Europe with 46 rapes per 100,000. Incidents of robbery are different from the theft as it is associated with the bag snatching, mugging with violence. This type of incidents is most fa mous among the Caribbean and Latin America with 21% of rate. In last 10 year of the period, the incidents of robbery and assault have been increased in the communities that are mostly poor and have been facing the income inequality. The people who are living in poorer communities with higher population are mostly exposed to crimes (Fajnzylber, Lederman Loyaza, 2012). Relationship between income inequality and crime In many developed countries and most of the African countries, the measurement of income inequality does not account the wealth accumulation. The income inequality mostly impacts on the property crime in African Countries and in European regions as the people like to take this as permanent or transitory income. As opined by Enamorado et al., (2016), a region where income inequality is low and permanent income of people is high, the crime rate is also low, these places would give the wider distribution of transitory income. From 1974 to 2010, the permanent and transitory income of people got higher, income tax reports showed this figure. Total income could be measured by the total earning, job types and intergenerational variations. The younger generation has been facing the issue of permanent income shock as the permanent income has been calculated through the random growth model. According to Cheung Lucas (2016), property crime can be classified into three categories, burglary, sho plifting and auto theft. Increase in permanent income shock or inequality can push significant positive impact on the three categories as the people would try to have transitory income. Braithwaite (2013), opined that independent variables of crime that have associated with the inequality of income are sector-specific wages, unemployment rates, Gini Coefficient, average market wages. The critics estimated the opportunity wages for unemployment compensation and unemployment rate. As stated by Kennedy et al., (2017), opportunity wage is mainly depended on the rational choice of assumption which can provide legal opportunities to earn a wage to reduce the crime. Law enforcers are taking heavy loads in order to reduce the crime rate in the poorer communities as significant improvements in jurisdictions and law enforcement have already been taken in many parts of the world. The governments are trying to reduce the crime by instilling fear of long-term punishment. However, the government needs to contribute in a way that can improve the economic condition of the society to address the income inequality with better wages, availability of employment and job security to the poor people (Gutierrez et al., 2013). NGOs can work for the betterment of the condition of the poor section with self-development programmes, educate them, eradicate the desperation of money to be equal and provide family support. Research questions Primary question Does income inequality facilitate crime among the deprived section? Secondary questions What are the reasons behind rising in income inequality in different parts of the world? What types of crime are associated with income inequality? What could be some possible solutions to curb the income inequality and crimes among deprived section? Research design and methodology In order to conduct this research project, the researcher will collect both secondary and primary data. Secondary data will be collected from journals, government reports, websites, articles and books. Primary data will be collected from interview and survey. Qualitative method In this research project, the researcher will do interview sessions with the economists and sociologists who are residing in Australia. In the qualitative method, the interviews could be done through unstructured or structured types (Mackey Gass, 2015). The researcher has already identified two economists and two sociologists and the researcher will contact them through Facebook. The interviews will be through Skype as meeting them would not be possible. The researcher will prepare 8 open-ended questions about income inequality and crime in the society. The interviews will be the semi-structured type. The gathered data will be analysed through qualitative data analysis technique. Population Sample size Sample technique Sample frame Economists and Sociologists 4 Non-probability sampling Email and telephonic interviews Table 1: Collection of qualitative data through interview (Source: Created by researcher) Quantitative method In this research project, the researcher will collect the primary data through a survey. The researcher will prepare 15 close-ended questions for gathering data about income inequality and crime. The questions will be of two categories, demographics and subjective. The questions will be made on Google page and the researcher will post the questionnaire link on an Australian community Facebook page. The researcher has already taken the permission for this. There are more than 500 members of the group and the researcher will choose 150 respondents based on simple random sampling who will provide all responses. The data analysis procedure will be quantitative data analysis. Quantitative data deals with numerical findings (Taylor, Bogdan and DeValult, 2015) Population Sample size % of population Sample technique Sample frame 500 Australian citizens 150 30% Simple random sampling Google questions sheet link will be posted on Facebook page Table 2: Collection of quantitative data through survey (Source: Created by researcher) Research limitations In conducting the research, the researcher may face the issue of data validation in the literature review section; there will be various judgemental reviews and news. The researcher may face the limitation of accessing the online pdf because of the financial boundary. The researcher may also face the issue of time constraint in reviewing all the literature. In addition, in collecting the data from the survey, the researcher may face the limitation to filter the unbiased data from more than 150 respondents. The research will be the cross-sectional type of research, however, the primary data will showcase the responses only of Australian people's opinions and it may miss out the global perspective. Time schedule Activities Week 1 Week 4 Week 8 Week 12 Week 16 Week 20 Week 24 Selection of research topic ? Reviewing the literature ? Selection of research methods ? Collection of primary data (Interview and Survey) ? Drawing conclusion ? Providing recommendations ? Submission of research ? Table 3: Gantt chart (Source: Created by researcher) Conclusions Crime statistics depend on someone reporting the crimes and then someone reporting the aggregate statistics. There is room for distortions to be introduced at each step. The resources available to collect the data are probably less in poorer parts of the world than in wealthier parts. Finally, there may be a defining deviancy down effect where all these statistics are attenuated. It is absolutely inconceivable that human nature will allow a wealthy class to hoard all of the wealth for themselves, and cause widespread poverty in the process, expecting the victims of that greed to just complacently accept their fates. The problem in the developed countries and in other places where there are unimaginable wealth and dire poverty side by side, clearly the disadvantaged will find some way to lash out against the obvious injustice. The government and Humanity group can make people understand the consequences that can deter the offenders and aggressors from committing criminal acts. Reference List Box, S. (2017).Recession, crime and punishment(p. 96). Hong Kong: Macmillan Education. Braithwaite, J. (2013).Inequality, Crime and Public Policy (Routledge Revivals). Abingdon: Routledge. Brush, J. (2017). Does income inequality lead to more crime? A comparison of cross-sectional and time-series analyses of United States counties.Economics Letters,96(2), 264-268. Cheung, F., Lucas, R. E. (2016). Income inequality is associated with stronger social comparison effects: The effect of relative income on life satisfaction.Journal of personality and social psychology,110(2), 332. Chiu, W. H. Madden, P. (2015). Burglary and Income Inequality. Journal of Public Economics, 69, 123141. Choe, J, (2013). Income Inequality and Crime in the U.S. Economic Letters. 3(3), 31-33. Dahlerg, M Gustavsson, M. (2015). Inequality and Crime: Separating The Effects. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. 129-154 Enamorado, T., Lpez-Calva, L. F., Rodrguez-Casteln, C., Winkler, H. (2016). Income inequality and violent crime: Evidence from Mexico's drug war.Journal of Development Economics,120, 128-143. Fajnzylber, P., Lederman, D. Loayza, N. (2012) Inequality and Violent Crime. Journal of Law and Economics. 45(1), 1-3. Gutierrez Rufrancos, H., Power, M., Pickett, K. E., Wilkinson, R. (2013). Income inequality and crime: a review and explanation of the time-series evidence.Sociology and criminology,1(1), e103-e103. Hipp, J. R. (2017). Income inequality, race, and place: Does the distribution of race and class within neighbourhoods affect crime rates?. Criminology,45(3), 665-697. Hsieh, C. C., Pugh, M. D. (2013). Poverty, income inequality, and violent crime: a meta-analysis of recent aggregate data studies.Criminal justice review,18(2), 182-202. Kakwani, N. (2016).Income inequality and poverty. Oxford University Press. Kennedy, B. P., Kawachi, I., Prothrow-Stith, D., Lochner, K., Gupta, V. (2017). Social capital, income inequality, and firearm violent crime.Social science medicine,47(1), 7-17. Mackey, A., Gass, S. M. (2015).Second language research: Methodology and design. Abingdon: Routledge. Olson, J. M., Herman, C. P., Zanna, M. P. (2014).Relative deprivation and social comparison: The Ontario symposium(Vol. 4). Psychology Press. Patterson, E. B. (2017). Poverty, income inequality, and community crime rates.Criminology,29(4), 755-776. Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., DeVault, M. (2015).Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. New Jersey: John Wiley Sons