Murder: The Most Prevalent Crime in the US - Essay Sample

Introduction

Murder is one of the most prevalent crimes in the United States. As defined by the UCR, murder is the willful killing of a human being by another. The classification of the crime is primarily based on the investigation of the police as opposed to the determination of the court, coroner, jury, medical examiner, or other judicial bodies. The above classification does not entail death caused by negligence, suicide, justified homicide, and attempt to kill as reported in the UCR program. Given that murder is one of the most rampant crimes in the USA, its study, especially its pattern, would be integral in identifying the necessary remedies that can be applied to curb the menace. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the murder trend or statistics in 2017 in the USA. It achieves this by defining murder as stated in the UCR program, explaining the various murder statistics that are presented on the FBI website. The paper will also discuss Durkheim's crime theory and how this concept is applied in explaining the murder cases recorded in the USA in 2017. The article will ultimately summarize the ideas discussed in the paper.

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Murder Trend or Statistics

The number of murder cases in the United States has been on the rise since 1998. In 2017, the estimated cases of murder were 17, 284 ("Expanded homicide," n.d.). In comparison to the figures reported in 2016, the number reduced by 0.5 percent, but it increased by 20.7 percent in contrast to the values recorded in 2013. The rate of murder in 2017 was 5.3 people per 100 000, and this rate reduced by 1.4 percent as compared to the figures recorded in 2016. However, the data recorded in 2017 were high by 17.3 percent as compared to the ones recorded in 2013. All these figures were retrieved from table 1 and 1A. The distribution of murder cases in the USA was not uniform since most of them were reported in major cities. As shown in table 3, 45.9 percent of the estimated cases were reported in the South, 11.3 percent were recorded in the Northeast, 22.6 percent were reported in the Midwest, and 22.6 percent were reported in the West. The data presented by the UCR shows that males recorded the highest number of victimhood concerning murder as compared to females. Out of the 15129 murder cases that were recorded by the police in 2017, 78.4 of them were male-related, as shown in the expanded homicide data table 1. In terms of race, African Americans recorded the highest number of murder cases as compared to other races. Of the murder victims recorded, 54.2 percent were blacks, 43.1 percent were whites, and 2.6 percent were of different races, as shown in the expanded homicide data table 2.

Groups orchestrated most of the murder cases. As indicated in the expanded homicide data table 4, 45.6 percent of the reported murder cases were single victim or offender situation. Males also recorded higher cases of victimhood as compared to women. Of the number of cases that had identified genders, 88.1 percent of them were males, as shown in the expanded homicide table 3. The use of firearms orchestrated most of the murder cases, and the exact figure was 72.6 percent of the cases. Handguns were the most used with the number of murder cases recorded by the use of guns being 64.0 percent, as shown in the expanded homicide data table 8. Most of the victims of the murder cases were strangers since only 28.0 percent of the reported cases were about people who knew their killers other than their family members. Family members slew 12.3 percent of the victims, and 9.7 were murdered by strangers, as shown in the expanded homicide data table 10. Different reasons propagated the murder cases reported, and out of all the reported cases, the police were able to determine the circumstance that motivated the occurrence. Arguments and romantic triangles propagated 39.0 percent of the reported cases. Felony murder accounted for 24.7 of the reported incidents, as shown in the expanded homicide data table 11.

Durkheim's Theory

Different theories have been created to explain the cause and existence of crime in society. Emile Durkheim's crime theory is one of the ideas that have attempted to explain the origin of crime. Durkheim explained the process of societal formation and how the rules of the sub-units of the society are galvanized to form the societal norms. He noted that the process of rule formation might be rejected by some individuals who might question the whole process or be defiant of the process. These individuals create their rules and break them as they deem fit. He believed that crime is caused by anomie, which is a state of lawlessness (DiCristina, 2016). According to Durkheim, anomie is caused by abrupt social change, and it affects how human desires are controlled in society. The whole disorder changes human behavior to crime. Durkheim's theory analyzed how social forces affect one's behavior. In his analysis, he observed that crime is inevitable since everyone is socialized differently, and in the process of socialization, some people would be negatively impacted and indulge in crime.

Poor socialization, as explained by Durkheim, is that individuals fail to accept the set social norms and mainstream societal values, which makes them deviant (Durkheim, 1972). The modern society is very complex, `particularly large cities which are occupied by people with varying cultures and lifestyles that contradict the doctrines of the mainstream media. The concentration of people in the cities leads to the formation of subcultures that have contradicting norms. This might lead to disagreements among people, which might ultimately result in confrontations and deaths. The killings might be among friends, relatives, or strangers since Durkheim noted that poor socialization could affect everyone, including lovers or family members. A functioning society has value consensus into which most people in the community have been socialized. The consensus is reinforced by policing of the margins, which entail the formal and informal sanctions that are used in either punishing offenders or rewarding those who conform to the norms. Social misfits do not comply with this consensus and often commit crimes such as murder.

Application of Durkheim's Crime Theory

Durkheim's theory is instrumental in understanding how murder occurs in society and what motivates it. The theory stated that the formation of urban cities has led to a dilution of cultures. The convergence of different cultures caused a state of anomie. Lawlessness is caused by the imperfect socialization process, which makes one defy the social norms and create their laws. People who are governed by their laws are prone to committing different crimes such as murder. As reported in the UCR data, most cases of homicide were reported in the major cities in the USA. These statistics can be backed up by Durkheim's theory of crime that states that overpopulation of people in urban areas leads to dilution of cultures and social fabrics that hold specific societies together and regulate their behaviors. Cultural dilution leads to a state of lawlessness that drives others to crimes such as murder. The data reported in the UCR also indicated that most men were murdered in 2017 as compared to women. This could be because men develop inferior socialization methods as compared to women, and some of them tend to defy the set social norms, and they engage more in crime.

Cultural dilution can also be used in explaining why African Americans recorded the highest number of victimhood in the reported murder cases. The culture of the African Americans has continuously gone through transformation and dilution, which has left them with no specific set social norms that can guide their behaviors, and this has left some of them in state of anomie. Hence, some of them indulge in criminal activities such as murder. The inefficient socialization process is not only evident among the victims but also the aggressors of the murder crime; as reported in the UCR data, some of the murder cases were justified, and this means that the victims were on the wrong side of the law. In such cases, the victims could have adopted a wrong socialization process, and that could have triggered either police officers, firearm holders, or other individuals to kill them. Arguments are one of the reasons that were highlighted in the UCR report to have led to some of the reported deaths. Given that argument is a product of poor socialization, the point made by Durkheim was right in stating that inefficient socialization process drives some people to be defiant of social norms.

Conclusion

In summary, murder cases in the USA have been on the rise since 1998. However, the case reported in 2016 was slightly higher than the ones reported in 2017. Most of the homicide cases were carried out by the use of handguns, and they were propagated by either arguments or self-defense against aggressors who had other motives. African Americans recorded a high number of deaths related to murder as compared to other races, and this was attributed to over dilution of their cultures and social norms. Murder cases were majorly reported in urban cities, and as explained by Durkheim, cultural dilution majorly occurs in urban areas, and this leads to a state of anomie.

References

DiCristina, B. (2016). Durkheim's theory of anomie and crime: A clarification and elaboration. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 49(3), 311-331. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865815585391

Durkheim, E. (1972). Crime as a normal behavior. Readings in Criminology and Penology, 4-9. https://doi.org/10.7312/dres92534-003

Expanded homicide. (n.d.). FBI: UCR. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/expanded-homicide