Relationship Between Social Class and Crime

Relationship Between Social Class and Crime

There has been a great debate on the relationship between social class and crime in criminology. Crime mostly being related to individuals at low-class lifestyle and justice being distributed unfairly is a phenomenon that has caused significant conflict from different views. There is an assumption of a low-class lifestyle being inherently criminogenic. It is assumed that crime was mainly a lower-class phenomenon (Hagan, J., & Peterson, R. D. 1995). Individuals from low-class lifestyles are most likely to get convicted for crimes. In the United States, most prisoners end up being unemployed and earning less compared to the general population in America. Criminal activity by a wealthy person can cause a significant threat to the economy; however, wealthy individuals who engage in criminals are less likely to be arrested. Since ancient times, white-collar crimes have not been acted on severely like in street crimes.    

Besides, female offenders are less likely to be sent to prison as compared to male offenders, and if they are sent to jail, they mostly serve short sentence jail term (Croall, 2011). Studies show that males dominate the criminal justice and prison system; this indicates that we have a lot of male offenders being jailed compared to the other gender. Generally, there is an unfair distribution of justice, especially poor individuals being mistreated, getting long jail terms as compared to a wealthy person. This also proved from the quote where death row inmates said, “ people with capital don’t receive capital punishment.” This quote shows that affluent individuals are less treated harshly when they get involved in crime; this means that a wealthy person can easily get away with a murder case. 

Corporate crimes are not famous like such as street crimes. However, society undergoes a more significant loss of resources as compared to street crimes. Corporate crimes do not only involve stealing and swindling of billions but also causes loss of life and as well as leading to a poor or threatening working environment. There is a report from the FBI that over 19000  American citizens are killed every year. However, the death of 56,000 American citizens from job accidents are not mentioned by corporate firms. This shows that Corporate firms don't disclose sensitive information, and this scenario has led to a lack of accountability that has led to a rise in corporate crime. There has been a lot of instances of Corporate crimes such as bribery, bribing of public officials false claims in advertising, destruction of the environment due to negligence, embezzlement, manipulation of the stock market, and falsifying information on financial statements. For instance, Enron,  an American based energy company, was disclosed to have swindles a lot of billions of dollars in debt from shareholders by accounting loopholes and financial statements that were falsified. In the year 2001, the company was declared bankrupt, and the shareholders lost $11 billion. A corporate crime scene might affect society significantly, even leading to death. Corporate firms have been getting away with murder cases, bribery, and many other crimes since they can afford higher best lawyers to stand up for them or use their money to bail themselves. 

Although corporate crime is a threat to society, they go unpunished. Corporate crimes are hard to discover and thus challenging to curb. There are usually no witnesses when a white-collar crime is committed, unlike street crimes, this crime is mostly private, either being engaged in the office or at home. Besides, Corporate firms get away with crime since it involves embezzlement of finance, stock market, merchandising, and many other crimes that need specialties; this makes it difficult for FBI and Law experts not understanding fully, which might lead to biased judgment. Although a corporate crime is caught on the act, it is challenging to approve if it was committed intentionally, recklessly, or menacingly. The management might have influenced it. It is also hard to effect criminal law principles to white-collar crimes and established companies have funds higher best lawyers and defend themselves from being judged accordingly when they called in court. Such privileges are not enjoyed by individuals who commit crimes. In most cases, street crime victims are sometimes subjected to habitual offender laws commonly called three-strike laws, which causes unfair judgment as corporate firms might get involved in continuous crime activity without being convicted. 

In conclusion, there is an unfair Criminal Justice system in the United States of America. This is due to affluent individuals going unpunished after being involved in crime while a low-class individual is judged unfairly. The victims of criminal justice systems are mostly low-class individuals that makes them vulnerable to unfair judgments. Although there are high chances of lower-class individuals being involved in crime and unjust punishment since they don't have resources to get good lawyers to stand up for them, a wealthy individual will get judged differently and even get away with it. 

Reference

Hagan, J., & Peterson, R. D. (1995). Criminal inequality in America: Patterns and consequences. Crime and inequality, 14-36. 

Mooney, G., Munro, M., & Croall, H. (2011). Criminal Justice in Scotland. Willan Publishing. 

Michalowski, R. J., & Kramer, R. C. (2007). State-corporate crime and criminological inquiry. In International handbook of white-collar and corporate crime (pp. 200-219). 

Springer, Boston, MA. Sidanius, J., Davis, G., & Ghani, A. (2020). The Criminal Justice System as an Instrument of Oppression. Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at Racial Prejudice in the US Criminal Justice System, 1 

Fusaro, P. C., & Miller, R. M. (2002). What went wrong at Enron: Everyone's guide to the largest bankruptcy in US history. John Wiley & Sons.