Crime
Sociologists see strong links between crime and social exclusion in industrialized societies such as the United States. Growing crime rates may reflect the fact that a growing number of people do not feel valued in the societies in which they live. The socially excluded population cannot meet the standards of economic status and consumption that are promoted within society. Therefore legitimate means are bypassed in favor of illegal ones. Crime is favored over the political system or community organization. Young people increasingly grow up without guidance and support from the adult population. Young people also face diminishing job opportunities to sustain a livelihood. This can cause a sense of willingness to turn to illegitimate means of sustaining a desired lifestyle.
Read more about this topic: Social Exclusion
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)