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:
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it’s intimate and psychological—resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)