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. Word Count: 609