FREE ESSAY ON IS STREET CRIME MORE HARMFUL THAN WHITE COLLAR CRIME?

IS STREET CRIME MORE HARMFUL THAN WHITE COLLAR CRIME?

Is Street Crime More Harmful than White Collar Crime?
By general definition, a crime is a wronging, proclaimed by law against society. All acts
of disobeying the law are crimes. Be it an assault or embezzlement one has committed a
wrong. Yet we have learned values and morals from our surroundings which gave us concepts
of the degree of harm pertaining to a particular crime. From our being submerged in a
culture, our concept of crime is usually that of a physical one. We as a society,
generally conjure images of a personal assault on oneself when defining the concept of a
crime. Very rarely would ones first connotation of crime be of an executive of a large
firm stealing money from the business. We as a society, generally define our concepts by
our surroundings. Society is more frequently exposed to street crimes. It is very rare
that a day goes by that we do not learn a murder, physical attack or robbery through the
media. Those so called street crimes effect our neighborhoods and society everyday. Those
crimes are contributing to the destruction of society, our cities, our streets. The
street crime is the most harmful of crimes, it is responsible for the disintegration of
society as we know it.
To demonstrate the harm caused by society by street crime, one has to look no further
than to inner city neighborhoods. Street crimes are responsible for injuries, death,
sexual assaults and the loss of personal property through force. They can also be
attributed to the decline of local business and the drop in education and pride in ones
communities as well. In the lower economic neighborhoods, many resort to crime for
financial reasons. Members of the community sell drugs or rob as means of support. These
deviants do not inflict these crimes on neighborhoods other than their own. This is the
major reason why street crime is so harmful. The members of society through their illegal
actions are destroying society. Due to an increase in street crime, businesses close
early and people avoid being on the streets. This allows the deviant, liberal opportunity
to break the law.
Where white-collar crime does not directly effect society, street crime does. The
predatory deviant victimizes society both directly and indirectly. Direct victimization
is the personal attack, be it a robbery assault or extortion, individuals in society will
react. People live in constant fear of being a victim of crime. This individual fear can
lead to indirect victimization, that on society as a whole. This is evident in a
neighborhoods loss of economic development and criminal deviants become the role model
for the younger members of society due to their appearance as a figure of wealth and
power. These street crimes lead to the downward spiral of society economically and
morally. Another aspect of how street crime ruins society is that the act is usually
committed within the society itself. Most street crimes are committed by deviants to the
members of their own neighborhoods. This is due to the closeness of their potential
victims. This is why neighborhoods which characteristically generate the cause of deviant
behavior, generally have a higher rate of crime occurring within them.
While all crimes are a wrong committed against society, some do more damage to society
then others. Street crimes are perhaps the most harmful to society, caused by the deviant
criminal behavior on ones own neighborhood, this causes its destruction. Street crime has
caused the legal economical, educational and moral declines in many neighborhoods.
Violent street crime is not only a wrong against an individual of society but an act in
the crumbling of society itself.