I wonder if any of you saw the recent article in the New York Times that reintroduces the "culture of poverty" hypothesis generally attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the 1970s. Many are quite aware of the trepidation that many have about using such a characterization. The article states:
'“Culture is back on the poverty research agenda,” the introduction declares, acknowledging that it should never have been removed. '
I wonder the thoughts of my fellow (non)bloggers about this topic. I believe it to be quite controversial. Interesting enough, I quite literally just had an editor on a book chapter ask me to remove the phrase "disadvantage" from a manuscript for similar reasons.
Monday, February 14, 2011
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If the role of structure (politics, policy, and economics) is taken into consideration in discussing a culture of poverty, then have at it, Hoss!
Agreed.
I still, however, think there is a strongly resistance in academics to discuss anything that casts lower SES communities in a negative light. While I very much appreciate the caution by which we do that, to ignore the real pathologies does no service to anymore. I think it might have been WJ Wilson who argued that.
Hello! I'm Wade. I am studing Criminolgy At IU East in Richmond, IN. I have to obseve a blog for an assignment and have a cople of questions. Do you think that poverty is linked to higher crime rates in the urban setting. If so Why is it higher in the Urban setting than the rual setting?
Hi Wade -
I don't quite follow your question. What to you think is higher in urban versus rural settings? Also, what are YOUR thoughts on the issue.
I find that in what I see in on TV and in news is that in urban areas in inner cities there is a higher crime rate such as robbery. If you look at the rural or counties of the same location almost all crime comes from in the city. I think it's because there are more targets of opportunity in a close more crowded area due to Poverty.EXAMPLE: If you take one poverty stricken person who lives in the city say he is 18 yrs. old and you take the same person move him out to a country setting say in a farm house. It is much easier for the inner city person to commit crimes such as robbery. Just by being close to multiple targets. Please feel free to correct me. I am looking for feed back and I will accept some criticism. Thank you for letting me be apart of your blog.
Thanks for clarifying. There seems to be a whole bunch of issues going on here. Remember, however, that use of rates takes population into account so comparison of rates should account for that. Now, one important difference could be population density which creates a different dimension to the discussion. Certainly the density would be much higher in urban areas possibly creating more defacto "suitable targets" that people may come into contact with.
I would also be cautious about making the conclusion that crime in rural areas comes from urban areas. I just don't buy that, although I really am not sure of any firm statistics. Interestingly enough, when you speak with police even in urban areas, they will often tell you that THEIR crime comes from different cities. Smaller cities in Massachusetts, for example, constantly complain that Boston drives their crime problems, and even smaller cities in the same region will claim the source of their crime is another community. I think the research is pretty clear - people tend to victimize people they know, people they live near. The idea of the random, stranger crime is really an anomaly.
Now, in terms of your poverty argument - in many ways this gets back to that research methods argument of causation versus correlation. Crime is not caused by poverty, but it is highly correlated with it. Poverty is but one of many factors that affect victimization and offending rates. There will obviously be HUGE place-based differences (e.g., social disorganization, collective efficacy), among others, that will likely account for theoretically-related differences that also help to account for crime levels.
Wow, that was an awesome answer.I totally see your point. My next question is education a factor in committing crime. Are lower educated people more likey to commit crime. I know that we have both white collar crime and blue collar crime but , will a college education keep some of those people that would have committed a crime from doing so?
Like any good professor, my answer would be "What does the research show?" and then go ask you to find the evidence to show me. But again, like poverty, educational problems are highly correlated with crime. Look to some of the "risk factors for delinquency" literature - Particularly authors like Thornberry, Loeber, Howell, and others and you will see this laid out pretty well. Good luck!
Thank you for the refernces. I will take a look at some of the stats. and get back with you on what I find. Have a good labor day weekend.
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