Crime Levels and Criminal Justice: A Study of Factors and Consequences - Essay Sample

Introduction

The continuous changes that occur over time in the levels of crime pose various consequences in the department of criminal justice. Besides, the factors also have significant impacts on the critical policy sectors that deal with crime management. The recent research by the National Research Council (NRC) critically addressed the substantive factors alongside methodological issues regarding the contemporary level of criminal activities (Aneja & Weber, 2018). The study revealed the following factor as major facilitators of crime trends.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Age

The recent survey revealed that senior citizens commit less crime than the junior groups (Rosenfeld, 2018). The senior group entails the aged adults who have families or children while the junior class encompasses the teenagers who are still amidst of their youth stages. Out of all the factors that contributed to crime, the NRC research revealed that 25% of the criminal activities are committed by the juvenile groups (Ashton & Lee, 2016). Thus, the solution that the criminologists provide to the menace is to change the overall population distribution.

Immigration

Immigration entails coming in of foreigners into a country. The act has increasingly influenced the rate of crime since the new immigrants coming in to have different reasons and are used to particular ways of life (Light & Miller, 2018). For instance, if the immigrants originate from countries with a high rate of crime, they will introduce such activities in their new regions of residents leading to growth in the rate of crimes.

Economy

The ongoing debates regarding the impact of the economy on crime trends reveal that poor economies assist in reducing the levels of the crime rate. The debates by criminologists reveal that low-income economies have a particular way of orienting their teenagers in a morally upright way (Agnew, 2016). The parents are fully available to their children and give them the necessary guidance as they thrive into youthful stages. Besides, the fact that money is not readily available in such regions, they have a reduced number of valuables to spend hence lowering the rate of desire which may facilitate crime activities. The reverse with a high-income economy is true.

Abortion

The acts of legalized abortions have been confirmed to be a major step in reducing criminal activities (Hjalmarsson, Mitrut & Pop-Eleches, 2019). Contemporarily, a bigger percentile of criminal activities is committed by the youth, abortion has helped in reducing the youth population hence lowering criminal acts in most communities. For instance, the criminologists' results of the abortion cases that were done between 1973 and 1997 revealed that the cases of criminal activities were between 15-25 % rarer in the latter year than in the former year) (Lauritsen., Rezey & Heimer, 2016). This was a clear confirmation that the rates would be higher had abortion remained illegal.

Guns

The availability of firearms has a greater impact on the crime rate. NRC research revealed that the availability has facilitated the proliferation of the weapons to the teens who have confirmed to be major criminals in the society (Burruss, 2020). The specific percentage of youth ownership of guns stands at 37.1% with 23% of the cases reported to have obtained guns through unverified means (Broadhurst, Lee & Chan, 2016). The menace has tremendously increased the rate of criminal activities among youths.

Gangs

Another significant factor that has facilitated the growth of crime trends is the increase in the number of teenage gangs. The gang members have increasingly acquired guns since having the firearms is among the steps of entering into the club (Fowler, Stylianou, Zhang, Reid & Mousavi, 2019). This has therefore facilitated criminal activities in most regions.

On balance, the criminologists' arguments on the growing number of criminal acts should alert other security organs to intervene. The NRC and other related bodies should introduce effective methodologies to curb the ongoing menace. High levels of crime drain countries in various ways which in turn deteriorates the economy.

References

Agnew, R. (2016). Strain, economic status, and crime. The Handbook of Criminological Theory. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 209-229. Retrieved https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118512449#page=225

Aneja, A., & Weber, K. D. (2018). Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data, the LASSO, and a State-Level Synthetic Controls Analysis.

Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2016). Age trends in HEXACO-PI-R self-reports. Journal of Research in Personality, 64, 102-111. Retrieved https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656616301040

Broadhurst, R., Lee, K. W., & Chan, C. Y. (2016). Crime trends. In Understanding criminal justice in Hong Kong (pp. 75-98). Routledge. Retrieved https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/

Burruss, G. (2020). Crime in 2020. Exploring the Future of Crime, Communities, and Policing, 104. Retrieved https://futuresworkinggroup.com/s/Policing2020.pdf#page=104

Fowler, S., Stylianou, A., Zhang, D., Reid, S., & Mousavi, R. (2019). Predicting Violent Crime with Gang Social Media Postings. Retrieved https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/data_science/data_science/1/

Hjalmarsson, R., Mitrut, A., & Pop-Eleches, C. (2019). The Impact of Abortion on Crime and Crime-Related Behavior (No. w26024). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved https://www.nber.org/papers/w26024

Lauritsen, J. L., Rezey, M. L., & Heimer, K. (2016). When choice of data matters: Analyses of US crime trends, 1973-2012. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 32(3), 335-355. Retrieved https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-015-9277-2

Light, M. T., & Miller, T. (2018). Does undocumented immigration increase violent crime?. Criminology, 56(2), 370-401. Retrieved https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12175

Rosenfeld, R. (2018). Studying crime trends: Normal science and exogenous shocks. Criminology, 56(1), 5-26. Retrieved https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12170