Social Class & Crime
Social class divisions in the United States are not always clear to many people. Not only do they change over time, they may also change from place to place. How do you define your social class? Is it simply a matter of your individual or household income? Do you define it based on your profession or level of education? How might your residence explain your social class? Or, to borrow from Marx, how does your relationship to the means of production (worker or owner) determine your social class?
When we look at the effect social class divisions have on crime, the results are similarly not always clear. Annual reports of people arrested in the United offer many compelling insights when it comes to demographic characteristics like gender, age, race, and ethnicity; however, they don’t tell us much about social class characteristics such as income, occupation, or residence.
Some of the best information that we might consult regarding the social class characteristics of people in jails and prisons is derived from surveys of inmates. Unfortunately, the last detailed survey of prisoners serving felony sentences in state penitentiaries, who make up the majority of those incarcerated in the United States, was conducted in 1993.
Locking Up the Lower Classes
Members of the lower classes are overrepresented in U.S. prisons. Why? Is it because they commit more crime? Or are they more likely to be targeted?
Research on the U.S. correctional population leaves little doubt that most of the people serving time for criminal offenses come from the lower end of society’s socioeconomic continuum. Statistics from government reports reveal that those in prison tend to be less well educated and are more likely to be unemployed and earn far lower incomes than the general population.
In one 2002 survey conducted on inmates incarcerated in local jails revealed a similar pattern, the following finding was reported: only about half of jail inmates were employed full-time at the time of their arrest (even though the national unemployment rate was below 5%). Likewise, more than half of jail inmates earned less than $15,000 a year (Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), U.S. Department of Justice, 2004). Although statistics may be skewed by the fact that better-off offenders who are charged with street crimes are more likely to avoid imprisonment, there is little reason to believe the degree of error is substantial. All one has to do is observe any urban police station or city court to know that very few middle- or upper-class citizens are arrested and prosecuted for common street crimes.
Briefly put, the U.S. Criminal Justice System effectively incarcerates the poorest of the poor. Although wealth and power do not preclude arrest and sentencing, they certainly make it statistically more likely that the person will not see the inside of a prison cell.
Police Discretion, Arrest, and Incarceration
The police officers’ decision-making process, where they decide whether or not to approach and arrest someone plays a big role in who shows up in our jails and prisons. The term for this is “police discretion.” And the research shows us that the perceived social class of a potential offender has a major impact on how the officer ultimately responds (i.e., when to file an official police report, whom to approach, whom to arrest, whom to charge, and whom to send to prison). This impact is without a doubt reflected in arrest as well as incarceration statistics.
Self-reports from police document that the police are more likely to arrest low-class offenders and offer leniency to higher class offenders. In this instance, it is not so much the specific criminal behavior that drives arrest statistics so much as it is the impact of social class on policing practices, which produces a “classed” outcome.
Debates & Perspectives
Despite the fact that our prisons and jails are full of poor people, the link between social class and criminal behavior remains controversial. To explain the high rates of incarceration among the poor, some scholars argue that the disproportionate representation of poor people in jails and prisons is indicative of their overinvolvement in crime. Alternatively, others suggest this disparity is the result of a criminal justice system that unfairly targets the poor. Take a moment to reflect on your own thoughts here. How have you typically come to resolve the notion of social inequality as it relates to arrest and incarceration?
The contradictory perceptions about the relationship between social class and criminality are, in part, the product of disparate research findings. There is no shortage of research studies that have examined this relationship; however, there is little consensus because of inconsistent findings and inclusive results.
For example, some scholars argue that crime is more likely among people in higher social classes, yet others argue criminality is more prevalent among the lower classes. Some of the inconsistencies here can be traced to the different research methods used to study the relationship between social class and crime, including different data collection methods; different conceptual categories, ways of measuring social class and crime, different population samples; and different analyses.
Some critical criminologists have argued that ALL categories of crime and social class are ideological constructs, which is to say, the categories themselves are biased/ideological from the outset, so no true quantitative measure is possible (see the work of Jock Young).
An examination of the past research reveals that the earliest of these studies (those conducted before the 1950s) tended to find more criminality among the lower classes than the upper classes. These findings, in turn, provided the foundation for numerous theories of crime and delinquency that attempted to explain why poverty was criminogenic.
Factors singled out for study included: individual and cultural deficiencies, lack of opportunity, and differential (harsher) treatment of individuals in poorer communities by the criminal justice system. Many of these early studies and theories, however, were only tenuously rooted in empirical research. That is to say, they didn’t follow the rigorous standards set for research that are in effect today.
Critique
Although the social class–crime link was widely accepted, there are criminologists who took issue with the research methods that produced the correlation between social class and criminality. Most commonly, they argue that measuring crime through the use of official data (i.e., arrest data, prison statistics) represents a biased picture of crime. This measure of crime did not take into account the reality that many crimes go unnoticed or unreported, or simply that recorded statistics reflect the whims and intentions of those who wish to count some but not others.
This unknown and uncounted crime is referred to as the dark figure of crime. The problem, as these criminologists see it, is that there is no way to determine whether accurately measuring the dark figure of crime would or would not show crime to be more broadly distributed.
Some criminologists also argued that official measures of crime may actually better measure police practices than actual levels of crime; that is, in reality, they may simply reflect, at least in part, the discretionary practices of police officers concerning whom to arrest and whom not to arrest, or a judge’s propensity for sending particular offenders to prison while reserving alternative, community-based sanctions for others.
The development of self-reported data in the 1950s intensified the debate. Researchers administered surveys to individuals randomly selected from the population and asked them to report their criminal behaviors. Although many of the earliest of these studies did not support the belief that lower social classes were more criminal, there was enough research that found contradictory results to ensure that the issue would not be resolved. In short, the results were mixed and inconclusive on the question of social class.
Many sociologists and criminologists attacked the validity of self-reported data. Others took issue with the validity of official measures of crime (i.e. FBI statistics/UCR). Their argument was that there is no way to determine whether people in self-report studies are telling the truth about their criminal behavior. Doubters suggested that self-report surveys were better measures of a participant’s willingness to tell the truth about his or her criminality. They speculated that people from the lower classes were underreporting their deviant and criminal behavior while those in the upper classes were overreporting, thereby artificially reducing the magnitude of the correlation between lower-class status and criminality.
Tittle, Villemez, and Smith (1978) reviewed 35 research studies that examined the social class–crime link and concluded that there was an extremely small relationship, with the members of the lower classes exhibiting slightly more criminality. They also noted that this relationship had become smaller over the past four decades. This research, however, by no means settled the debate.
The inconclusive results became the impetus for even more extensive and complicated empirical research efforts. Much of these later efforts attempted to discover the conditions under which social class influences criminality. One set of studies attempted to determine whether the manner in which social class and crime were measured impacted the likelihood of discovering a link between social class and crime. In terms of social class, several studies suggested that this relationship may exist only among people in the lowest economic strata, the group sometimes referred to as the underclass. These studies measured social class by dividing populations into dichotomous categories such as welfare recipients and nonrecipients or, for school-age children, those who receive free lunches and those who do not.
Other studies used a composite measure of social class, which often included education, occupation, and income. Still, other studies used Marxian classifications of social class, conceptualizing social class in terms of an individual’s (or his or her parents’) relationship to the means of production— specifically, whether they owned some means of production or sold their labor for a wage. And still, others expanded the Marxist framework to include other variables, such as whether one has control over the means of production and/or control over the labor of others. The emphasis on control helped to distinguish between wage workers who have managerial positions and those who do not, which is an increasingly prevalent distinction in modern society.
Crime was also measured as part of an effort to determine whether it conditions the social class–criminality relationship. For example, studies have examined whether the negative relationship between social class and delinquency existed only for the most serious criminal offenses or the most frequent offenders.
The source of crime data was thought to have an effect on whether a relationship between social class and crime was uncovered. Some criminologists held that crime would be shown to be more prevalent among the lower class if official police data or court records are used to determine criminality. As previously mentioned, they argued that people from lower classes are more likely to underreport their criminal behavior on self-report surveys.
A number of other studies sought to determine whether demographic and environmental variables had important conditioning effects on the class-crime relationship. For example, some studies examined whether the effect of social class on criminality was greater among blacks than it was for whites or among males than among females. Given the contradictory results of these research efforts, it would be difficult to suggest that the social class– criminality relationship was specific to a certain race or gender. Still another set of studies has examined whether this relationship was more likely in areas that were characterized as being more heterogeneous, more urban, or in higher status areas, and again produced mixed results.
Tittle and Meier (1990) reviewed the research literature that examined the relationship between socioeconomic status and delinquency and that attempted to specify whether any of the aforementioned conditions mattered. They concluded that there was little evidence that the link between social class and criminality existed under any of the conditions examined. The most recent and more sophisticated studies have generally arrived at similar conclusions, although some studies did help clarify the relationship. For example, Wright and his colleagues found that people in lower social classes experienced lower educational and occupational goals and more financial strain, aggression, and alienation, which in turn increased delinquency (B. R. E. Wright, Caspi, Moffitt, Miech, & Silva, 1999) .
Alternatively, delinquency in the higher social classes was thought to be the result of high socioeconomic status causing increased risk-taking. Lack of economic and social power, on the other hand, diminished the commitment to conventional values, which then predisposed many youth to delinquency.
Dunaway, Cullen, Burton, and Evans (2000) examined the relationship between social class (measured in a variety of ways) and criminality (based on self-report surveys) and found that, among adults, the correlation was weak for less serious offenses. They did, however, find a class effect for violent offenses and among non-whites. This study was distinctive in that it measured adult criminality, a surprisingly under-researched population.
Conclusion
In the end, the best conclusion that can be drawn about the relationship between social class and the commission of street crimes is that it tends to be weak and present only under certain specified conditions. In light of this, criminology researchers must continue to attempt to specify other circumstances that may influence this relationship.
What many of these studies do have in common is that most approached the definition of crime as being nonproblematic instead of acknowledging crime as a multifaceted concept that includes crimes of the disadvantaged as well as crimes of the powerful.
Unfortunately, the latter (studies of the powerful) were, and still are, less apt to be considered. This is important, because if studies included offenses that powerful individuals are more likely to commit (e.g., insider trading) and that those in lower classes are in no position to commit, then there would be little question as to whether criminality would appear more evenly distributed across social classes than has traditionally been thought. Moreover, it is only by including a wider variety of offenses that we can consider the social class–crime link as having been more completely and fairly tested.
So, although there has been little advancement toward settling the social class–street crime questions, the introduction of self-report studies has generally confirmed that criminality is more broadly and equally distributed across social classes than previously suspected.
We’re All Criminals
Studies have consistently shown that nearly 90% of Americans have committed at least one crime for which they could have been sentenced to jail or prison.
Research findings confirm the use of official statistics does not provide a full accounting of who is/is not committing crimes. A lot of crime is never reported (dark figure of crime). Consequently, we are not always measuring and accounting for the true level of crime.
Instead, we are merely measuring the decision-making practices of the criminal justice system.
This article highlights an incredibly important issue. The economic disparities within the criminal justice system. It points out how, often, it seems that poor people are the ones who end up behind bars, while wealthy individuals can avoid incarceration. The fact is, money plays a huge role in the outcome of many criminal cases. When a rich person is arrested, they typically have the resources to pay for top-tier legal representation, bail, or even secure a deal that keeps them out of jail altogether. Sadly, this is the reality of how the system works.
The article also raises an uncomfortable question, are poor people more likely to be imprisoned because they commit more crimes, or are they simply unfairly targeted by the system? This is a critical point because, in reality, there are no clear-cut answers. The issue is complex and layered, with many factors at play. What is undeniable, though, is how the justice system often treats crimes differently based on who commits them. A poor person committing the same crime as a wealthy person will likely face harsher consequences, including jail time. On the other hand, the wealthy may never even spend a night behind bars. It’s frustrating and unjust, and it speaks to the larger problem of inequality within the criminal justice system.
After reading the article, I wasn’t surprised to learn that social class has a big impact on how people are treated and often determines who is more likely to be seen as a criminal. Police tend to focus more on people who appear poor or less wealthy. Unfortunately, many people make judgments about others based on how they look, assuming that if someone dresses or acts a certain way, they must be trouble.
I believe that social class plays a role in shaping who a person becomes. i believe if someone grows up in a poor neighborhood that’s already filled with crime can lead younger people to follow the same path. If all you see as a child is people making money by selling drugs, it can be hard to imagine other ways of making a living.
People in lower social classes often face lower educational and career opportunities, which causes more stress and frustration. This, in turn, can lead to more aggressive behavior and criminal activity. Inequality has always been a part of our country, and it helps explain why some people are born into success while others struggle just to get by. Given this, it makes sense that for people from lower-income backgrounds, the temptation to turn to delinquent behavior might seem like the only way out.
Reflecting on this data about how poor individuals is not shocking, but yet another flaw in our judicial system. I believe social class has a lot to do with this. Growing up in a white neighborhood with little to no crime, I may have seen a police officer drive down my street 10 times my entire life. In poorer areas, I’m sure they may see police officers that amount of times in a singular day. I believe over-policing takes place in poorer areas and thus we see higher incarceration rates with poorer individuals. It’s interesting to read about self-reported data as well, as there is much controversy around it. The main issue being whether or not these individuals were telling the truth about committing crimes. This could skew the data as mentioned in your writing that poorer individuals underreported crime where as the upper class individuals overreported crime to maybe balance out the numbers. This would cover up some of the bias against lower social class people. Ultimately, I do believe poorer areas are over-policed because they assume there is more crime there. However, that is where we see disconnect with civilians and the police.
Something that caught my attention in this article was when it talked about the members of the lower class and how they are over represented in United States prisons. This over representation of the lower class citizens in United States prisons shows that the lower class essentially is being targeted by police for committing crimes. Every now and again I will see a white collar rich person get arrested for fraud or some other crime like that. It is kinda like the rich are protected just because they have money while the poor end up getting put in jail for minor crimes that ruin their lives. It is crazy how a little bit of money can get these wealthy people out of legal situations. At the end of the article it said that 90% of Americans have committed at least one crime that they could have been sentenced to jail or prison. This statistic just shows that crimes are being committed every day and it is the lower class people who are the ones being caught not the rich. Overall social class and crime has been a very controversial topic and I do not know what can be done about this other than police not discriminating and arrest people when they do wrong.
The main point of the article is that social class plays a significant but complicated role in understanding crime and incarceration in the United States. While prisons and jails are filled mostly with people from lower social classes, it is not clear whether this is because poorer people commit more crimes or because the criminal justice system unfairly targets them. Studies show that people in lower social classes are more likely to face harsher treatment from the police and courts, such as being arrested and imprisoned for minor offenses, compared to wealthier individuals who may avoid punishment for similar or worse crimes. This is because the wealthier people might know someone that works for the justice courts. People who are on the lower end of the social classes might not have a way out because they most likely will not know anyone to get them out. I am not surprised that this is the way the justice system when it comes to lower class people.
This article brings to light the very important topic of economic status of people who are serving time. The article also mentions that poor people are effectively put behind bars, but when wealthy people are arrested, they will most likely not see the backside of bars. It is important that this is brought to light because it is seen a lot in society. When people say that “money talks,” they are not wrong. When wealthy people are arrested, they have the money to pay their way out of being put into a prison cell. As unfair as it sounds, it is a way that the Criminal Justice System works. Which also brings to light something else the article mentioned. It could either be poor people in jail are the results from overinvolvement in crime, or poor people are unfairly targeted by the Criminal Justice System. This statement is very important because nothing is ever black and white. We will never have a direct answer of what the problem is. However, it is also very upsetting knowing that crimes between social classes are not treated the same. A crime that a poor person commits will most likely put them behind bars, but if that same crime is committed by a wealthy person, they are most likely never going to see a prison cell.
I am not surprised to learn from the article that the lower class Americans are overrepresented in United States prisons because I have seen research published that these people are the ones being targeted, not because they commit that much more, if any, crime than other social classes. This comes because the police are more likely to arrest those who make less money in comparison to those better off financially, which is wrong. Those living in lower class America already are struggling enough not just economically, but also because this takes a toll on them mentally. Targeting and arresting these Americans is bad because it sets them back even more by giving them a criminal record that will prevent them from having the ability to move up the ladder when it is already hard enough given the resources they have. Also, it is easier for those in lower economic areas to stay out of crime due to low community engagement, opportunities in the community, and resources given, so some of these people may find themselves being involved in crime due to having nothing else or having the idea that they will not progress so what does it matter? Giving these communities more resources can also help prevent this overrepresentation in the prison system.
While lower income people tend to land in jail or prison more often than high class people I believe that all groups regardless of social class or race add to the unknown number in the “dark figure of crime”. There are two main reasons why I believe that high class civilians tend to get away with their share of criminal activity. To start, the main reason is because the police aren’t looking for them. It’s not common to see a cop car patrolling around Beverly hills looking for any laws that could be broken. And frankly why would they, any criminal activity that would be happening would be behind the walls of an expensive house out of sight from any legal authority. The second reason that I believe the arrest rate between classes is so skewed is due to the high class defendants having a team of lawyers able to keep them out of prison. Meanwhile civilians in the lower classes have to either rely on public defenders.
This article brings to light the very important topic of economic status of people who are serving time. The article also mentions that poor people are effectively put behind bars, but when wealthy people are arrested, they will most likely not see the backside of bars. It is important that this is brought to light because it is seen a lot in society. When people say that “money talks,” they are not wrong. When wealthy people are arrested, they have the money to pay their way out of being put into a prison cell. As unfair as it sounds, it is a way that the Criminal Justice System works. Which also brings to light something else the article mentioned. It could either be poor people in jail are the results from over involvement in crime, or poor people are unfairly targeted by the Criminal Justice System. This statement is very important because nothing is ever black and white. We will never have a direct answer of what the problem is. However, it is also very upsetting knowing that crimes between social classes are not treated the same. A crime that a poor person commits will most likely put them behind bars, but if that same crime is committed by a wealthy person, they are most likely never going to see a prison cell.
This post made me realize that social class is connected to crime and the criminal justice system in ways I hadn’t really thought about before. It’s shocking to see how the system seems to be biased against low-income people, and it made me wonder if a lot of what we think of as crime is actually a social construct. The fact that the poorest are often imprisoned, even when they don’t commit more crimes, is pretty disturbing. I also found it interesting how police discretion plays a role in deciding who gets arrested based on their perceived social class. This shows that crime isn’t always about personal behavior but how society views people based on their class. It seems like the criminal justice system doesn’t really measure crime but it measures who gets caught. i was also very shocked to find out that 90% of Americans have committed at least one crime, which shows how widespread criminal behavior is, yet the system mostly focuses on certain crimes. The overrepresentation of the poor in prisons suggests that it’s not just about crime but about who gets caught in the system.
The revelation that nearly 90% of Americans have committed acts that could warrant incarceration fundamentally challenges the narratives we hold about crime, morality, and justice. It highlights the hypocrisy and selective enforcement embedded within our criminal justice system–a system that disproportionately punishes certain groups while ignoring or excusing the crimes of others. This reality forces me to confront the uncomfortable truth that criminality is not inherently tied to character or morality but is often a matter of circumstance, opportunity, and, critically, systemic bias. I think the implication is that crime is universal but punishment is not. This points to a deep failure in how we address social harm. Instead of fostering accountability and rehabilitation, our current system scapegoats certain groups, leaving the root causes of crime–poverty, inequality, lack of opportunity–unaddressed. It’s hard not to feel disillusioned by the system’s blatant inequities.
An important point of the article is the disproportionate representation of impoverished individuals in the criminal justice system. The article challenges whether people with low income are more prone to engaging in criminal activities, or if they are just more susceptible to being apprehended and put behind bars. This differentiation is important because it shows that social class doesn’t necessarily lead to increased criminal behavior, but rather to increased interaction with the criminal justice system. For example, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more liekly to reside in neighborhoods with a higher police presence, which increases their chances of being arrested. Also, poor individuals may be more susceptible to severe penalties due to factors such as limited access to quality legal representation, decreased chances for diversion programs, and the stigma of poverty. The article explains that the justice system not only punishes the poor more than others because they commit more crimes, but also because they lack the resources to avoid getting involved in it. This leads me to consider the underlying systemic disparities present in society, how poverty can create a repetitive pattern that pulls people into the criminal justice system.
For a long time, we could see the division of social classes between the upper, middle, and lower classes. Today this has been reduced to upper-class and lower-class people, it divides this way because either there are people with too much money to be able to stop working without worrying or there are poor people with different levels of poverty. The working class are people who, if they lose their job, must worry about what they are going to eat next month probably because the cost of living is too high. It is no surprise that poor people fall into jail more than people with more money. Today and always money has been able to buy your freedom and your way of being treated by the police. Even the police tend to think that poor people are more likely to commit crimes, so they have poor neighborhoods and communities more heavily policed than the rest. Because who is going to think that someone in the upper class is going to commit a crime. Also, when you have the money to be able to get away with the crimes you commit you are only going to leave people in jail who don’t have money to live on. These are people who probably live from day to day and for a single day that they have no income they are forced to resort to crime. Although many people don’t want to admit it, many people resort to a life of crime because it allows them to have an income that they can’t have by working honestly. So rather than a problem of social classes, I think it is a problem of the system that does not care that lower-class people are not receiving income that allows them to live without worrying about the next day.
While reading this article you see how different social classes play different roles in our prisons. This article did a good job explaining many different reasons why. The lower class populates our prisons the most with only 50% of the prisoners having full-time jobs. While the nation’s unemployment rate was under 5%. While are mostly uneducated which makes me think no wonder they are caught up in our prisons more. They have fewer Opportunities to learn and earn better jobs while that being said they are more likely to earn minimum wage jobs leaving it hard to provide for themselves and their families. Leaving them more likely to go commit crimes that could either make them more money or cause them to steal things that are needed to get by. Another thing stated with more crime being in the lower class areas officers are gonna tend to be there more often which lead to more arrest in those areas. Rather than a higher class area where the same crime may happen and with a lack of police in those areas someone may get away with it or the police are more so willing to work with someone in the higher class. That plays a role in the policing method used whether to walk up to someone because of what they look like and where they live etc. Those reading was very interesting and more so eye-opening in how the police work with people in different social classes.
After reading this article, I have come to the conclusion that members of the lower class are subject to a greater degree of observation in regards to criminal activity. This is because of the lower classes poverty as well as their outer appearance. The upper classes are less closely monitored than the lower classes because of their status as well as their wealth. It is more common to see depictions of people from lower social level serving time behind bars. People who are currently doing time in prison for various offences are often members of lower social classes in our society. Very few people from the middle class or higher are arrested for breaking the laws that occur on the street. Officers of the law base their judgements on who to arrest on how people seem, taking into consideration whether or not a person has a dishonest or criminal appearance. It is completely unethical to use those characteristics as a cause for arresting someone. But what about those who fall into the other categories of people? The majority of people incarcerated in this country are convicted of low-level street offences. Studies show that over ninety percent of Americans have engaged in criminal behavior at some point in their lives. This suggests, from an analytical point of view, that a significant percentage of people from the higher classes should also be sentenced to prison term with those from the lower classes.
After reading the article, I pretty much expected that depending on social class correlates who is looked at more as a criminal. Police officers often pay more attention towards those who are poor or look less wealthy. The first perception that some people may have before actually knowing a person is that if they look in a particular way, they are trouble. I feel social class pays factors into what type of person someone will be. Growing up in a more poor neighborhood already full of crime can really impact someone younger to go down that road. If at an early age the only way you see people making money is selling drugs, the chances are you will as well. I also feel it is not necessary to just pay more attention to someone because of how they look or how much money they make. Everyone deserves to be treated equally no matter what. Not just lower class individuals commit crime, but middle and upper class as well. I truly believe that the more major crimes are committed by people that are wealthy, but because of that wealth the crimes are pushed aside. It is interesting to look into how social class correlates with crime, but how can we make change to equally judge the wealthy and poor?
Locking up the lower class is a very touchy subject, but also so easy to believe. Several cases you will see how there are tons of police patrolled within the lower socioeconomic and financial sectors. Several situations’ police target certain areas because of the lack of financial gain several crimes occur because of that. The rich won’t necessarily be targeted because of the community they live in the car they drive. When communities are in financial burden, they tend to do whatever it takes for survival. Crime being one of those survival instincts it helps not only coping with the problem of no money, but also pleases the needs for money income. This article went over how represented lower class is within prison. This makes a lot of sense because statistics have shown that in some cases poor communities are targeted. Most of the poor communities are also uneducated because of the lack of financial resources. When you don’t have a financial backbone to rely on, it’s hard to balance survival and also education. If no one was serious about learning how these indifferences occur within the USA, no one would really be able to recognize the true struggle when it comes to the higher incarceration rates among those who are less fortunate and able to obtain a proper and fair education system
I was not at all shocked while reading this article and especially not shocked by lower class being targeted. I think it is very safe to say that when police officers see a poor person or a person lower classed that they pay closer attention to them and sometimes try to find a reason to arrest them. Only half of jail inmates were employed full time at the time of their arrest, more than half of jail inmates earned less than $15,000 a year. The criminal justice system definitely targets the poor more, but it is safe to say that middle and upper class people still commit crimes. We don’t hear much of upper or some middle class people committing crimes do to things swept under the rug and being hid because of who they are and what they have. I also think its safe to say that unfortunately when looking at statistics the lower class or poor people are more likely to commit crimes compared to middle or upper class. Research has shown that the perceived social class of a potential offender has a major impact on how the officer responds. Overall I think that when a poor person is around, yes a cop pays more attention to them and what they are doing, but I do think its fair to say the lower classes do commit more crimes and that this is why.
The impact that class has on the broader discussion of crime can just show how they can be targeted. The statistics about that our prisons are full and also the kails but then the social classs and criminal behavior fact are controversial. But I also think that they are not fully controversial because there is a broad discussion about it. People who are in poverty and in poor neighborhoods are kind of growing up around crime and illegal activity and that’s all they know that they want to follow in those foot steps. As I come to resolve the notion of social inequality as it relates to arrest and incarceration, I feel like if you are dressed a part of looking wealthy the police will overlook you as opposed to someone who is dressed lazy like. There has and sadly always probably will be, inequality in our country. History is known for replaying itself and I feel this is how the criminal justice aspect will be as well. The statistic at the end I believe is very truthful with 90% of Americans being a criminal because they have at least committed one crime, whether you were a child, teenager, or maybe even an adult. We are all criminals, just depends if you get caught.
– When reading this article everything I read I pretty much expected and I think there is a direct correlation between social class and crime. I did read that most of our inmate population is people in the lower social class and I can see why. Even though that is the case, that doesn’t mean by that people in the higher social class do not commit more crimes, because people in the higher social class do commit big major crimes, but because of money and power those are sometimes brushed underneath the carpet, one very interesting thing I read as well was police discretion and how police discretion relates to who is in our prisons to this day. I did read the controversy between the crime and social class, but I believe social class does have a direct correlation and poor people are more likely to commit a crime, I’m not saying high social class does not commit crime but I do think more crime is committed at the lower level.
After reading the article, I am not surprised that those who are among the lower class in this country are most of the population of prison inmates. It also doesn’t surprise me that, as mentioned in the article, social class and wealthiness determines whether an officer approaches you or not. Often enough, upper class people are more capable of receiving a free getaway card compared to lower class people who must endure the encounter with the police. And to no surprise, there is a reason why there is such a huge population of lower-class people filling up the prisons compared to higher class. Another piece of information from the article that I found hard to hear was that lower social classes experience lower educational and occupational goals creating more stress and aggression which results in increased delinquency. There has always been inequality within our country. This explains why there are people born and raised straight into success and why there are those who struggle to reach that path. Based off that, it is easier for lower class citizens to become motivated to follow the path of delinquency. Then researchers wonder, “Why are there so many poor people inhabiting city streets?” The question now is what we should do as a community to fix this problem once and for all, or how do we shorten the difference between social class?
Considering the impact that class has on the broader discussion of crime and its prevalence, researchers and academia as a whole must understand how “class” is defined. As stated in the post, the lack of a consensus regarding its definition should, of course, be noted, yet I would submit that this exemplifies the need for further research on the topic as a whole. Doing so would naturally add to the body of knowledge available to us, thus allowing us to better understand this social construct and build research using it. With that said, there is an argument to be made against using it as an applicable subject altogether; the notion of class in and of itself is flawed due to its nature and lack of an agreeable definition. Moreover, if other associations can be drawn with crime (e.g., police discretion) and better represent crime statistics, then the rational approach would be to utilize other topics as a metric for comparison as opposed to the former. That aside, I never realized the holes within official crime statistics, especially when it comes to measuring white-collar crime. This would most likely be due to the large amount of attention that gets drawn toward street-level crimes, however, I would also like to speculate that this country’s history of racial oppression also plays a role. Given that people of color are incarcerated disproportionately (Blankenship et al., 2018), most racial stereotypes in this nation revolve around black criminality (Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000), and the framing of white-collar crime is often more forgiving towards those who commit it (who are often white) as opposed to street level crimes (Sohoni, 2019), a clear pattern of racial bias can be drawn. Relating to U.S. history, it was remarkably easier to criminalize a black sharecropper for an arbitrary crime and much harder to criminalize whites for the subjugation and subsequent death of black Americans, due to the significant amount of racial animosity present at the time, something we still bear the scars of.
Some statistics that really caught my eye when reading this article was that in 2002 there was a survey taken and only about half of the jail inmates in the local jail were employed full time at the time of their arrest. It was also stated that more than half of the jail inmates were making less than $15,000 a year. This was not surprising in the least, as studies have shown that poverty is highly correlated with people who are put into the prison system. This article also states that the social class of an offender can directly correlate to a police officer’s discretion when choosing who to arrest while out on the street. I definitely agreed with the perspective that our criminal justice system targets the poor, as well as the problem of overinvolvement of crime before reading this article. Reading the conclusions that research has found a weak correlation between social class and street crime is actually pretty surprising. It was definitely interesting to learn that these types of statistics rely on specific circumstances that influence the correlation between the two.
When reading this article I was not surprised that the lower class people who are making around or less then $15,000 a year are the one who cause more crimes. Most lower class people usually are committing crime to try and get money for the most parts and can get into trouble by doing so. For example, they could be selling drugs or robbing places to try and get some extra cash to take care of their families at home or to proved for themselves. When it come to the higher class vs the lower class, when the higher class commits a crime they can hire the best paying lower to get them out of it, making the justice system not even trying to go after them. The lower paying class can not do that, the justice system know they will not have to money for a lawyer or if they can it will not be a good one, making them be put into jail.
After reading the first couple paragraphs of the website post I found the different views on the poor demographic populating the prisons to be very interesting. As the the website post stated that according to government statistics, persons in prison have a lower level of education, are more likely to be unemployed, and earn far less money than the general population. According to police self-reports, officers are more inclined to arrest low-class offenders and are more lenient with higher-class offenders. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering all the data provided about the population or overpopulation of the people in prisons. In this case, it is the impact of social class on policing techniques, rather than specific criminal behavior, that drives arrest numbers, resulting in a “classed” conclusion.According to police self-reports, officers are more inclined to arrest low-class offenders and are more lenient with higher-class offenders. It was also eye-opening to learn about police officers’ decision-making process, which determines whether or not to approach and arrest someone. This process has a significant impact on who ends up in our jails and prisons. All of the studies looked into whether there was a link between social class and crime. Despite the fact that many studies have identified a relationship between the two theres still a small connection that contributes to society.