No one would deny the fact that the violent crime level in the United States is exceptionally high, in comparison with other industrialized countries, including the UK. For example, in Detroit, with a population of half a million, the annual number of crimes includes more registered homicides than in the whole of Britain, which has a population of fifty-eight million. The United States nowadays is a country in which crime and violence thrives. Why is this so?
The nature of crime could be studied by multiple disciplines, including jurisprudent, history, sociology and anthropology. However, it is obvious to conclude that the science, which studies crime and its effect on society, is called criminology. The latter examines crime, types of crime and their reasons, including other types of their relationships with a variety of phenomena and processes. On this basis, criminologists develop recommendations for improving the fight against crime.
A lot of scholars wanted to find out the reasons of crimes. In fact, causes of crime are such social phenomena that give rise to crime, maintain its existence, cause its growth or decline. The causes and conditions of crime in different sources have different names, such as determinants, factors, sources and so on. Under the causes of crime one refers to the social, economic, psychological and other objective factors, which give rise to constant cycle of crime. This is a basic, essential element of the problem of the existence of crime. In other words, the causes of crime is the set of social phenomena and processes, which in conjunction with the circumstances, play the role of the conditions that determine the existence of crime as a social phenomenon, the presence of the individual components of its parts, and at the individual level. From this definition, it follows that the concept of the causes of crime is connected with the philosophical categories of reasons, conditions and determinants, as well as a variety of levels.
Talking about US crimes, it must be emphasized that the reasons could be interpreted differently. Sometimes this can be explained by the fact that in United States it is much easier to obtain a gun or other firearms without official permission. This is partly true, but is not yet a complete answer. Switzerland, for example has a very low rate of violent crimes, but the weapons there are also easily accessible to citizens , because all men are considered to be soldiers of the army and keep their weapons at home, including rifles, revolvers, and sometimes automatic weapons and, of course, ammunition. “It is easy to get there a permission to purchase a gun”. (Clinard 2).
The most sutible explanation for the high level of violent crime in the United States is a combination of factors such as the availability of firearms, the overall impact of the tradition of ‘life on the border’ and the existence of the criminal subculture in large cities. Violence on the part of the inhabitants of the border strip and the members of vigilante is considered to be glorious page of American history. Some of the first immigrants, who settled in the cities, have developed their own informal methods of social control over the behavior of neighbors, supported by violence or threat of violence. Young people from the Negro and Hispanic communities have also developed their own subculture, based on the concepts, which are associated with the rituals of violence.
It is important to emphasize not romantic nature of many violent crimes. Most of the attacks and killings have little to do with ongoing under the deafening gunfire raids, as one presented them to the mass media. Murder is usually carried out in the family and among the people that are close to each other or friends. People are being killed much more often under the influence of alcohol than drugs, which is not surprising because alcohol is absorbed much faster.
A large part of crimes is classified as homicide, caused by the victim's behavior, when the victim provokes a fatal event, first by making a threatening gesture or inflicting the first blow. Many such examples are found in Wolfgang study conducted in the United States. He first drew attention to this phenomenon. Here, for example: "The victim flashed with anger when her offender asked her about the money she owned to him ,but victim grabbed an ax and ran to his offender , but he pulled out a knife and plunged it into the attacker." (Wolfgang 253).
Nowadays United states are suffering from a big rise of crime rate over the past couple of years. Not a long time ago, US leader Barack Obama for the 15 time has spoken during his presidency with a statement about violence with firearms, calculated the TV channel CNN. After the man who opened fire at one of the community colleges of Oregon, and killed at least nine people and had wounded 20, Obama was upset with regret that mass shootings have become common for Americans.
In fact, it is possible to affect the crime, prevent it, by influencing not only on the causes, but also on the entire consciousness. In many cases, it is easier affect the conditions of crimes, rather than the causes of crime. That is why the government tries to eliminate the conditions of crime, by accomplishing the law system.
26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, which was recognized as one of the college in Oregon, was a very self-cautious teenage. According to his neighbors, “he wore the same clothes every day, army boots, army green pants and a white shirt - and had always stayed close with his mother, who fiercely defended him”, writes The New York Times (Nytimes.com). Being an ordinary young man, the nature of his actions turned to be really cruel. The day before the murder, on Wednesday night, the killer had informed everyone on forum about his plans to carry out the shooting. Some forum members encouraged him to do that, gave him advice on how to make it better and what weapons to use. However, all the participants of the forum called him a miserable failure. It looked like a joke for most of the network members, but it fact, it was not. According to the Western media, the killer noticed that it is a unique opportunity to jump on the front pages of leading newspapers. The killer was right, he became infamous.
According to local newspaper News Review Today, referring to one of the witnesses, 18-year-old Courtney Moore, Mercer was interested in what religion his victims were, and if the student replied that Christianity, in response the killer said: "Well, in a second you will see God" (The News-Review). Chris Mercer was killed in a shootout with the police, but still hit the headlines, as he desired. His actions forced the American media once again to raise the issue of the sad statistics of deaths from firearms in the United States. According to the” Every town for Gun Safety”, Oregon College became 142th school in the US, where the shooting occurred - since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Then 26 people were killed, 20 of them were the kids.
One of the most brutal serial killers in history of US is associated with the name of Wesley Shermantine. The most interesting fact is that he has confessed of his crimes and told everything about how he committed them. Sentenced ten years ago to executions, Wesley admitted that with his childhood friend Lauren Duke, who was also sentenced to capital punishment, killed 72 people. The channel ABC concluded that only recently, he has decided to explain and talk about the crimes, committed by him, but obviously, with economic motivation.
Last year Wesley, who was waiting for his execution, was proposed to sell the information where he hid the corpses of his victims. Agreement reached 33 thousand dollars, which the killer spent on creating more favorable conditions of detention. Wesley was found guilty of murdering woman in California. According to the media, the killer had called some new names and reveals new facts about the circumstances of their death. The vast majority of those killed are females. The criminal attacked the unfortunates who find themselves alone on the deserted streets of small settlements and in remote rural areas.
The crimes were committed in the 80th and 90th years of XX century in the California Central Valley. The victims of the killer were mostly drug addicts and prostitutes. Therefore, their disappearance did not attract much attention of the authorities. In the reports of police there was made the assumption that they have moved to other areas or died from drug overdose.
Also, it is possible to recall Israel Casey, whom police caught in 2012. He is notable because this killer came to his business very prepared. He studied the history of other murderers to learn something useful and at the same time he did not want to repeat. Israel really wanted to be unique. Keyes developed and organized his murders plans very carefully. For example, in 2011, he sat on the plane that brought him from the West Coast to Chicago. There he rented a car and travelled thousands of miles to Vermont. In such "journeys", he turned off his mobile phone and paying cash to avoid leaving evidence. In addition, Keyes hid, what he called, "killer sets" in different places. These "sets" include murder weapon and chemicals (eg, Drano), to accelerate the decomposition of corpses.
The current state of crime in the USA is characterized by a continuous increase in crime. The growing statistics of serious and very serious crimes (murder, bodily injury, rape) is terrifying. Widespread economic crimes, such as bank abuse by bribery, fraud, forgery, theft and falsification of money and securities; some foreign economic crimes, including the self-serving abuse of authority, smuggling and crimes in the sphere of privatization of state and private property are also damaging country’s prestige. Unfortunately, today is a pronounced tendency of violent crime.
Against the backdrop of rising crime there is a tendency to increase the number of crimes committed by groups of individuals. Many of these groups have a stable character and some of those individuals are considered as weak ones. Due to the high specific gravity of group crimes, there is a consolidation of the criminal environment and formation of persistent organizational forms.
Socio-economic state of the society generates crime, plays and amplifies it. For instance, in the middle 90-ies of the last century, the economy crisis has been accompanied by a sharp social stratification of the population, hence the increased number of poor people dynamited social tensions in the country. Money, wealth began to determine the position in society, and because they are not equally shared, there produced a state of frustration. As a result, frustration was replaced by aggressive behavior, drunkenness, drug use, vandalism and crimes.
These factors are observed today. The increase in property-related needs is accompanied by a real reduction in their satisfaction, so the wages of public sector employees does not correspond to the prices of goods and services, which complicates the implementation of minimum standards to ensure a decent existence. As a conclusion, it must be said that a crime within the USA is a product of socio-economic, ethnic, religious and cultural problems. The phenomenon of a crime is hard to understand. “In fact, millions of dollars have been spent over the past fifteen years to combat organized crime” (Kelly at al. 22). However, this cannot stop the crimes in the minor groups, such as homeless, drug addictive people, etc. In addition it is nearly impossible to stop sexual harassments and unpredictable crimes. That is why the crime is not only the trouble of the government, but the issue for the entire society. There are lots of aspects, which damages the country’s safety, economy and balance.
References
Clinard, Marshall B. Cities With Little Crime. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge
Wolfgang, Marvin E. Patterns In Criminal Homicide. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania, 1958. Print.
Kelly, Robert J et al. Handbook Of Organized Crime In The United States.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Print.
Nytimes.com,. "Breaking News, World News & Multimedia". N.p., 2016. Web. 26 Feb.
2016.
The News-Review,. "Roseburg Oregon Breaking News, Opinion, Sports And
Entertainment | Nrtoday.Com". N.p., 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.
Ap.org,. "Associated Press". N.p., 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.
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