Essay on why crime is more prevalent in cities. With relevant theories and research
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Course
Criminology And Criminal Justice
Institution
The University Of Essex (UoE)
This document was written by me and it explains multiple reasons for why crime may be more prevalent in certain areas of the city. Includes plenty of evaluation. This answer may be used by other students to get an idea of what they need to do.
In this essay crime will be discussed and how and why it may be more prevalent in certain parts of
the city. This essay will explain why crime is more prevalent in certain parts of the city by using
research and theories. It will then conclude on the reasons why crime might be more prevalent.
This might be due to the increasing population in cities like London. The pandemic had a big impact
on crime a lot of crimes reduced because people could not go out, but now a lot of young people are
moving back to cities (Prynn, 2022), and this could cause more crime. In addition, living in cities
generates a certain way of life as there are more people it can make you feel anonymous and so
people might commit a crime because they feel that it is a less controlled environment. Gregory and
Urry (1985) argue that space can shape social life. This might be why crime is more prevalent in
bigger cities like Chicago because there is a certain way of life that generates and promotes criminal
acts.
The Chicago school introduced the zonal theory that has 5 zones and is used to understand patterns
in crime in big cities. The model argued that crime increases towards the inner area of the city. In the
US Chicago has one of the highest numbers of violent crimes, for example in 2020 the Chicago police
reported over 750 murder offences which is 50% more than murders reported in 2019. (Corley,
2021) Shaw and Mckay’s research supports that crime increases towards the centre of the city as
they found that a very high percentage of young offenders had grown up in the inner area of the
city. (Shaw, C. R. and H.D. McKay 1942) The theory and research help to understand that crime
might be so high in Chicago because of the way young offenders are brought up and raised. On the
other hand, the zonal theory was developed based on big American cities and the 5 zones may apply
to places outside, but it has limited applicability as it wouldn’t apply the same way for smaller cities
or different countries. Other areas might have different zones that would explain the distribution of
crime. Many of the research that supports the zonal theory was done in America and so it might
support the statistics in London, but it might not explain crime elsewhere.
According to the theory of Edwin, crime is learned. Sutherland argued that criminal behaviour is
learned when interacting with other people in intimate groups. When the criminal behaviour is
learned it would include learning techniques in which crime can be committed. Therefore, it can be
argued that there is an increase in crime in some areas of the city because crime is learned. In
addition, there tend to be more people living in cities so more people that you can interact with and
form a part of intimate groups to learn about crime. However, this theory can be challenged as it is
saying that bare interaction with criminals can make you one too. However, this is not always correct
as interacting with a stranger will not make you a criminal.
Another reason why crime might be more prevalent in cities could be due to labelling. One of the
main ideas of this theory is that once a person is described or associated with criminal behaviour,
they may turn to criminal behaviour to live up to their label. Sociologists have called this a self-fulling
prophecy. This could cause crime to be more prevalent. In big cities, there tend to be more people
and that could mean you are more likely to get labelled as a criminal. The criminal who then lives up
to their label may join a social group that they identify with, leading to subcultures. Research
suggests that people who had parents who were convicted also became more likely to be labelled
and be criminals (Besemer, Farrington and Bijleveld, 2017). Therefore, supports the idea of labelling
theory as it shows if you associate with people who are criminals you will be labelled as one.
However, this is not the case for all people. One of the criticisms of this theory is that many people
are labelled but not all of them live up to the label and turn to criminal acts.
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