With just the twenty-four news cycle feeding us information, it would not be surprising if you thought that the very foundations of society were crumbling around us due to the amount of violence and death reported on a daily basis. However, in actuality, the number of crimes committed in the United States is dropping and, despite what some politicians and media pundits would have you believe, the world is a safer place than it was fifty, sixty years ago. With this fact in mind some crime statistics will now be examined and analyzed to the best of my abilities. According to the “Crime in the United States by Volume and Rate per 100,000 Inhabitants (1991-2012)” chart, since 1991, the number of violent crimes has decreased by 371.3% or 697,305
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Also, it is quite obvious that we, as a collective society, are intrigued by the amount of violence that one person, or group of people, can commit to another; it secures high ratings for the networks, in short. Conversely, robberies are under reported for a rather basic reason – it is simply not practical, not entertaining to report on how a drug store was robbed. Unless it is an Ocean’s Eleven style robbery, it does not really catch the mainstream public’s attention. Examining these two crimes under Robert Merton’s Strain Theory, those that commit violent offenses would, generally, be classified as retreatants because there reject both the means and goals of society. For example, a man who murders the person who slept with his wife is not following any goal of society because he simply wants to kill the person who had sex with his wife. Those criminals that commit robberies are, more than likely, innovators because they agree with the fact that one needs to accrue wealth, but they reject the societal means to achieve them. Obviously, we do not consider robbing a liquor store as a socially acceptable way of amassing personal
Also, it is quite obvious that we, as a collective society, are intrigued by the amount of violence that one person, or group of people, can commit to another; it secures high ratings for the networks, in short. Conversely, robberies are under reported for a rather basic reason – it is simply not practical, not entertaining to report on how a drug store was robbed. Unless it is an Ocean’s Eleven style robbery, it does not really catch the mainstream public’s attention. Examining these two crimes under Robert Merton’s Strain Theory, those that commit violent offenses would, generally, be classified as retreatants because there reject both the means and goals of society. For example, a man who murders the person who slept with his wife is not following any goal of society because he simply wants to kill the person who had sex with his wife. Those criminals that commit robberies are, more than likely, innovators because they agree with the fact that one needs to accrue wealth, but they reject the societal means to achieve them. Obviously, we do not consider robbing a liquor store as a socially acceptable way of amassing personal