Crime is a broad spectrum phenomenon which has warranted the creation of artificial categorization to club together crimes that fall under relatable circumstances. It is for this reason that we have crimes such as misdemeanors and felonies which are punishable differently from crimes such as homicide and sedition. Crime also has a social component where the collective will of the people or the lawgivers brands certain acts as criminal and hence punishable. Thus, alleged practice of witchcraft was once a criminal offence in the United States of America and homosexuality is a crime in many Islamic nations. Another component of crime is the financial condition of the criminal and acts as a major motivator in carrying out the criminal act.
Social stratification compounded by the media crafted opinion of self worth based on the ownership of material goods and wealth acts as the undercurrent driving the decision making capabilities of those situated on the lower strata from an economic standpoint.
The relationship between socioeconomic structures and crime is a peculiar graph that exhibits a rise at both ends of the spectrum. This implies that barring the middle classes, both the upper strata and the lower strata show an increased propensity to perpetrate crimes. A logical inference from this empirical evidence is that there exists a desire to rise above their peers amongst the downtrodden as well as the privileged. Adding violence to this mix, the graph skews towards the lower classes to show that most perpetrators of violent crimes are the lower classes. Replacing violence with white collar crimes skews the graph in the direction of the affluent classes. The middle classes stay relatively calm or rather appear calmer due to the bulge in their population numbers.
Therefore, as far as social structures are concerned, being born in a certain strata does not predispose one to a stereotypical life. However, the continuous deluge of advertisements implying happiness with possession of material goods prods gullible individuals into embarking on the path of crime. This gullibility might be born out of the individual's own desires or those of their families. It is this secret sauce of material desires that causes criminal actions. A point of distinction is the rewards to cost ratio. The poorer classes commit crimes to achieve rewards which are cheaper and by extension make the act appear more grisly and ends up as news headlines that inform us about a murder taking place for monetary gains as small as $50.
Criminal acts are seldom a culmination of a cold calculation but are 9 times out of 10 an act of passion. The more a person is liable to lose control of his emotions, the more they are liable to conduct criminal acts. This means that children of poverty and disadvantage are also liable to fall in the trap of criminality. Empirical evidence points towards a higher domestic violence in poverty ridden homes and marginalized communities like minimum wage earning immigrants. The children of these groups grow up in an environment that is very tolerant of violent behavior.
In some cases, violence is deemed necessary to get by. When these children go to community schools and look at items owned by their peers which their own parents cannot afford,they are overcome by a wave of jealousy which makes them act out in the following ways:
Mockery - the child makes fun of what he cannot have and publicly claims that the ownership of that item adds no value to the owner.
Indifference - the child shows/feigns indifference towards the object and may even exhibit disdain towards the owner.
Admiration - the child exhibits his admiration of the object and congratulates the owner for owning it. This is a healthy response as the child exhibits no cognitive dissonance.
Thievery/Destruction - the child attempts to steal the object in question or break it to alter the ownership of the object. This is a harmful response as it exhibits destructive behavior which needs to be amended.
Another facet of growing up poor is the constant reminder from visual media and selectively curated success stories that an individual can break the shackles by the sheer dint of their hard work and enterprise. This type of reporting glosses over the lucky breaks and the social capital that the these successful entrepreneurs received in their ventures. When the industrious poor puts in their hard work and finds out that their growth pattern is not concurrent with that of the success story, they get disenchanted with the notion of hard work and get drawn towards get rich quick schemes which involve breaking the laws of the land. They begin to internalize their situation and begin to blame their circumstances and the game which is rigged against them in their head. This thinking leads them down a slippery slope where they begin plotting the taking of what they think they deserve, by force. It is not obscene to assume that the odds are stacked against them but it is so for different reasons than the ones they assume. Belonging to poor and marginalized communities, they have a different set of strengths and weaknesses than those above them on the totem pole.
The poor would be better advised to employ their own social capital and find solutions to the problems of their daily lives instead of trying to emulate the success story of an individual of a higher class. For example, creating the next Facebook is something that requires a different skillset than what is available to them. But, they possess another skillset which is living in a highly dynamic environment. If they fancy themselves as an inventor then they should attempt to find solutions for fixing broken pipelines and dysfunctional heating equipment which are present in abundance in their neighborhood. This helps them achieve the twin benefits of providing satisfaction of having helped the community and a vast market in their proximity.
The vile combination of poverty, materialism and alienation leads one to ask for the simplistic solution of wealth re-distribution. This is seen as a panacea for all socioeconomic ills and a tool of delivering equality to all. Proponents of wealth distribution believe that the wealth owned by the wealthy is ill-gotten and undeserved. This is a complete lie perpetrated by anarchists who revel in rousing the rabble. Economics is not emotional and demands work be done in exchange for monetary exchange. A government mandated wealth redistribution will only end in ramping up inflation and artificial rising of prices of general goods. Further, most economists believe that following the events of the redistribution, the erstwhile rich will soon make all their money back while the erstwhile poor will soon lose all their excess money and the equilibrium will arrive at more or less the same position as it was prior to the redistribution of wealth. Therefore, what the governments should actually undertake is the creation of satisfactory jobs which will provide a steady source of income for the poor in exchange for their work and help them build their savings for their own enterprise.