Reflective Essay on the Relationship Between Income and Crime

This reflective essay explores the intricate relationship between income inequality and crime, drawing upon previous assessments and research. It highlights how income disparities, globalization, and technological advancements contribute to crime rates, particularly in developed countries. The essay discusses sociological factors like unfair treatment and discrimination, emphasizing the importance of education, skills, and equal opportunities in mitigating criminal activities. It also addresses the role of government policies, penalties, and revenue collection in reducing income inequality and fostering economic growth. The essay concludes by advocating for comprehensive strategies that promote employment, education, and social equity to reduce crime rates and improve overall societal well-being. Desklib provides this essay as a resource for students, offering a platform with AI-based study tools and a wide range of solved assignments and past papers.

Running Head: Business Research
Business Research
Reflective essay over relationship between income inequality and crime

Business Research 1
This reflective essay is based on the topic income inequality and crime. It is based over two
previous assessments which are also based on the same topic. There are various reasons which
are responsible for occurrence of crime and income inequality is one of those aspects which lead
to occurrence in crime. In order to control crime rate, it is necessary to develop strict rules and
regulations. Penalties associated with the crime are majorly responsible for the crime rate. Apart
from the income, there are various sociological factors which affect the crime rate and some of
those sociological factors are unfair treatment, discrimination practices, etc. The major focus of
this reflection essay will be based over the relationship between income inequality and crime.
I have learnt that income inequality plays crucial role in occurrence of crime and income
distribution is one of those factors which lead to occurrence of crime in developed countries.
Globalisation is also one of those factors which lead to occurrence of crime as it has filches
employment opportunities from the local residents (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015). I have also
realised that multinational and other large companies are moving towards the cheap markets of
Asian countries in order to reduce cost of production and this has generated unemployment in the
developed countries. People have lost their jobs due to globalisation and due to aggressive
competition. In these scenarios, people have moved towards the negative aspects such as crime
and other related activities for their livelihoods. I have learnt that information technology has
acquired a large part of the market and with this, requirement of skilled and educated labours
have been increased. Due to this, unskilled labours do not get relevant chance to justify
themselves. Therefore they choose alternative ways for their survival and for improving their
financial conditions (Cooper, Kennelly, Durazo-Arvizu, Oh, Kaplan & Lynch, 2016).

Business Research 2
According to my experience, for living a healthy and basic life, it is necessary to get educated,
skilled and gain specialization in any field as per the individual’s interest. This helps an
individual to find the most appropriate manner in order to get a job or find a way to satisfy his or
her needs. But people who could not able to get all these facilities due to low financial conditions
or due to other factors such as low cast, discriminatory practices followed by the rich and high
class people, etc. This decreases the morale of the people and fills an immense level frustration
to prove themselves in front of the society irrespective of the way chosen and sometimes, this let
them towards anti-social activities to bring out frustration as well as to prove themselves. I have
researched on this topic and found that majorly it is seen in under developed countries
(Enamorado, López-Calva, Rodríguez-Castelán & Winkler, 2016). This is because those
countries have various issues such as high unemployment rate, huge population, practices of
unfair treatment, discrimination, etc. Due to these factors, competition amongst the individual’s
increases and people who are skilled enough get the opportunity and uneducated and unskilled
people chose the anti-social way to survive as well as to fulfil their basic needs. Though, anti-
social activities are risky but people with less education and with fewer capabilities adopt these
ways to snatch the money from rich people along with ignoring the risk involved in those
activities (Buttrick & Oishi, 2017).
Distribution of income is based over the individual’s effectiveness and efficiency but sometimes,
people found this distribution system of income as unfair treatment which leads to generation of
disputes. As per the discussion in previous tasks that before 1965, US were suffering from huge
crime rate and the major reason behind was lack of education. Most of the criminals arrested
were found college dropouts and they take support of anti-social activities for their livelihoods as

Business Research 3
well as to attain the higher position in the life. Crime is associated with acquiring short term
benefits and these cannot be obtained from the legal activities. I have also learnt that therefore,
poor people are generally found engaged in executing illegal activities for acquiring short term
benefits. Rich people need to put comparatively less efforts to attain success because they
receive luxury and comfort from their birth. On the other hand, poor people need to fight with
circumstances to uplift their life standards. This is the major reason that I had learnt from
studying the relationship between income inequality and crime. Poor people found illegal way
ore easier in compared to legal activities for gaining success and growth in their life (Eckenrode,
Smith, McCarthy & Dineen, 2014).
Crime has several types such as theft, robbery, kidnapping, murder, extortion, etc. All these are
performed for different objectives but the major objective is earning or snatching money in short
period of time. I have also learnt that there are various other objectives which lead to occurrence
of crime and dissatisfaction is one of those perspectives. Dissatisfaction towards life, towards
work and other parts may force the individual to opt the negative manner or anti-social activity
for reducing the gap between dissatisfaction and satisfaction as this seems to be the shortest way
to overcome with the issues. This can be understood with the research that daily more than
200,000 rape cases are being reported across the globe. Apart from recorded cases, there are
various other which are not reported due to society’s pressure, or due to other sorts of pressure
(Thompson & Gartner, 2014). Rape is also a part of crime but this is not because income
inequality, infect this is due to dissatisfaction. To stop these types of illegal practices, according
to my point of view, government authorities should impose heavy penalties on such criminal
practices. Penalties and crimes both have unique and direct connection, the more will be penalty,

Business Research 4
crime rate will be less but in the countries where penalties for such incidents are not heavy or
strict, and occurrence rate of crime is quite high (Pare & Felson, 2014).
In relevance with the relationship amongst the crime rate and thee income inequality, it has been
observed that there are various countries in the globe which have controlled this rate. In order to
remove this to the fullest, it is necessary to adopt certain crucial and advanced measures. As per
my opinion, the only way to stop these crimes are imposing penalties and providing all those
facilities and the services to the poor people who could easily be consumed and attained by rich
people easily and effectively. This will generate equal opportunities for both rich and poor
people and on the basis of capabilities and efficiency; they will get their roles accordingly.
Government bodies should also introduce certain awareness programs through which people
should be informed regarding the penalties for performing any type of illegal activities. Apart
from this, I have also experienced that fear is not the only measure to stop crime; there are
several others also such as reducing the gap of income inequality (Schneider, 2016).
Apart from these factors, disposable income of an individual is also a great source of increasing
the unequal distribution of income. Rich people are majorly found doing this and this is known
as showing less total earned income in order to reduce the tax payable to the government (Rueda
& Stegmueller, 2016). This ultimately reduces the purchasing power of the consumers and
hence, it leads to black money. Corruption is the biggest limitation of inequality in income
distribution system (Cheung & Lucas, 2016). Thus, I suggest the government to develop strong
rules, regulations and the policies for collection of tax and revenues so that rich people could not
be able to show less income compared to the actual earned income. This will increase the earning
of government and thus, they will easily be able to adopt certain effective measures to provide

Business Research 5
better facilities and services to poor people in order to reduce unequal distribution of income.
Ultimately it will help the country to increase its GDP as well as provide opportunities for being
a developed country (Wang, Pan & Luo, 2015).
According to my opinion, in order to reduce the crime rate, country and its authorities are
responsible for taking certain crucial steps in order to generate and provide employment
opportunities, opportunity to learn as well as sundry other opportunities to prove their
capabilities. This will help the poor people to get a satisfactory as well as effective chance to
grow along with their families. This will also leads to increase in the GDP of the country which
will ultimately result in growth and development of the whole country (Kawachi &
Subramanian, 2014).
Thus, it could be said that income inequality is the strong evidence of increasing criminal
activities. These activities are also known as anti-social and illegal activities. This reflective
essay is based over my personal experience, learning and opinions over relationship between
income inequality and crime. There are various reasons which are discussed in this essay which
are responsible for the generation of crime. Various strategies have also been discussed in
relevance with reducing the crime rate.

Business Research 6
References
Buttrick, N. R., & Oishi, S. (2017). The psychological consequences of income
inequality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(3).
Cheung, F., & Lucas, R. E. (2016). Income inequality is associated with stronger social
comparison effects: The effect of relative income on life satisfaction. Journal of
personality and social psychology, 110(2), 332.
Cooper, R. S., Kennelly, J. F., Durazo-Arvizu, R., Oh, H. J., Kaplan, G., & Lynch, J. (2016).
Relationship between premature mortality and socioeconomic factors in black and white
populations of US metropolitan areas. Public health reports.
Cushing, L., Morello-Frosch, R., Wander, M., & Pastor, M. (2015). The haves, the have-nots,
and the health of everyone: the relationship between social inequality and environmental
quality. Annual Review of Public Health, 36.
Eckenrode, J., Smith, E. G., McCarthy, M. E., & Dineen, M. (2014). Income inequality and child
maltreatment in the United States. Pediatrics, 133(3), 454-461.
Enamorado, T., López-Calva, L. F., Rodríguez-Castelán, C., & Winkler, H. (2016). Income
inequality and violent crime: Evidence from Mexico's drug war. Journal of Development
Economics, 120, 128-143.
Kawachi, I., & Subramanian, S. V. (2014). Income inequality. Social epidemiology, 126.

Business Research 7
Pare, P. P., & Felson, R. (2014). Income inequality, poverty and crime across nations. The
British journal of sociology, 65(3), 434-458.
Pickett, K. E., & Wilkinson, R. G. (2015). Income inequality and health: a causal review. Social
science & medicine, 128, 316-326.
Rueda, D., & Stegmueller, D. (2016). The externalities of inequality: Fear of crime and
preferences for redistribution in Western Europe. American Journal of Political
Science, 60(2), 472-489.
Schneider, S. M. (2016). Income inequality and subjective wellbeing: Trends, challenges, and
research directions. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(4), 1719-1739.
Thompson, S. K., & Gartner, R. (2014). The spatial distribution and social context of homicide
in Toronto’s neighborhoods. Journal of research in crime and delinquency, 51(1), 88-
118.
Wang, P., Pan, J., & Luo, Z. (2015). The impact of income inequality on individual happiness:
Evidence from China. Social Indicators Research, 121(2), 413-435.