Every social problem is related to one another. A particular social problem like those categorized as economic problems can aggravate other problems such as drug abuse, unemployment, dissolution of family structures and crimes. Poverty, an economic problem is seen as a factor that trigger the occurrence of other social problem such as crimes. Poverty has long been considered to be as an important factor in predicting the variation in city crime rates. Communities with greater poverty rates are seen to lack resources for supervision of youth and community organization. Thus these communities are conceived to be more prone to have high crime incidents (Dweyer, 2001). History has proven that crime and poverty have a direct link and that they go hand in hand. We cannot deal with crime without dealing with its root causes like poverty.
The correlation between crime and poverty had been explored in a lot of studies. Most of these studies had shown that poverty is indeed greatly linked with the existence of crime. Areas of high socio-economic disadvantage tend to be more crime prone and a large number of crime offenders are coming from these disadvantaged backgrounds (Serr, 2010). The effects of poverty on crime can be explained in numerous reasons and can be further understood through the various reasons of people living in poverty behind committing crime. One of the main reasons for the criminal behavior of poor people is the way of survival. People living in poverty do not have enough and can barely sustain their basic needs and most of the times they commit crimes such as burglary or robbery as ways wherein they can gain money in order to sustain these needs. Since they have fewer options in life, sometimes committing crime is their only option to survive. It also offers a way wherein they can attain other material goods that they cannot obtain in legitimate ways.
Poverty also means having less resources towards achieving better education which...