The document discusses the hypothesis that less educated individuals living below the poverty line are more likely to commit crimes than their more educated counterparts. It explores theories such as anomie and provides evidence linking low-quality education and poverty to higher crime rates, while also addressing alternative factors that may contribute to crime. The conclusion emphasizes the correlation between education, poverty, and crime, suggesting that reducing poverty could significantly impact crime rates.

1. Luciana Quispe
SOC 101
Outline Part 2
Hypothesis: Less educated people who live below the poverty
level are more likely to commit crimes that people who are
more educated and live above the poverty line.
II. Criminology.
a. Anomie Theory
According to Merton’s formulation “anomie becomes the
explanation for high rates of
deviant behavior in the U.S. compared with other societies,
across groups defined by
class, race, ethnicity, and the like” (Robert Merton, Anomie
Theory). Education is at best
decisive in its norms about the appropriate means of being
successful. Crime and
deviance are thus seen as normal adaptive responses to the kind
of structural organization
that a society adopts.
Education and poverty are two factors that increase the
likelihood of crime for a person
because a lack of education and money can create a barrier
towards achieving a socially
accepted goal, such as the “American Dream”.
III. Practical Implications.
a. Implications for public policy

2. i. Education
ii. Social change
b. Implications for employers
i. Better pool of applicants
c. Implications for society
i. Reduced crime
ii. Increased social equality
IV.
Evidence.
a. Bonczar (2003) found “[the] relationship is clearest when
looking at dropout status and incarceration: although they
constitute less than 20% of the overall population, dropouts
make up over 50% of the state prison inmate population” (as
cited in Levin, Belfield, Muennig and Rouse, 2007, p. 13).
i. The evidence is statistics of the prison population in that a
lack of education can be the
reason towards explaining high crime rates among those that are
uneducated.
ii. A possible bias is that there could be an underlying factor
beyond education that

3. contributes to these statistics.
iii. An alternative explanation of these statistics is that
dropouts are more likely to
occur in bad sections of town which may contribute more to the
amount of crime these
individuals commit.
b. According to Valdez, Kaplan and Curtis (2007), “Lastly, we
also found that exposure to certain specific structural conditions
of concentrated poverty seems to be more salient than race in
explaining the violence and substance abuse nexus” (p. 600-
602).
i. The evidence is a study that shows poverty can also explain
crime rates in individuals
that are living in poverty conditions.
ii. A possible bias is that there could be other underlying
factors for this result beyond
poverty.
iii. An alternative explanation of these statistics is that
poverty is more likely to exist in
bad sections of town which may contribute more to the amount
of crime that local
individuals commit.
5.
Conclusion: The evidence found does prove that there does
seem to be a correlation between poverty and lack of education
with committing crime, and that in order to reduce crime rates
these issues need to be seriously examined for solutions.
References:
· Levin, H., Belfield, C., Muennig, P., & Rouse, C. (2007). The
costs and benefits of an excellent education for all of America's
children (Vol. 9). New York: Teachers College Columbia

4. University.
· Robert Merton: Anomie Theory (sometimes also termed strain
theory or means-ends theory) Retrieved February 13, 2015
http://www.d.umn.edu/~bmork/2306/Theories/BAManomie.htm
· Valdez, A., Kaplan, C. D., & Curtis, R. L. (2007). Aggressive
Crime, Alcohol and Drug Use, and Concentrated Poverty in 24
U.S. Urban Areas. American Journal of Drug & Alcohol Abuse,
33(4), 595-603. doi:10.1080/00952990701407637
Alejandro Rivas
Professor: Andrea Campbell
COM 450D-01
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The influence of low quality education and poverty on criminal
activities
Luciana Quispe
SOC 100
Bernard Curry
03-03-2015
Abstract
Mention the word “criminal” and everyone will turn a blaming
finger on poverty. The society has been convinced that crime is
a problem amongst the poor. However, we cannot absolutely
link the poverty to crime. There are other related factors that
contribute to the high crime rate such as a high level of
unemployment, locality, age, and population density.

6. Eliminating the effect of all these factors would help to
determine the real statistics of crime resulting from poor
people. This paper, therefore, aims at proving the statement that
fewer educated people who live below the poverty level are
more likely to commit criminal activities than people who are
more educated and live above the poverty line. Controlling
other factors, we can then determine the percentage of illegal
activities that poor-quality education people and poverty
account for.
Theoretical Argument
High poverty levels mean that children from these backgrounds
can only afford inferior education. Considering the world
perception today on matters of being educated, if you do not
acquire the proper knowledge you are hopeless to be poor. The
youths in these impoverished homes, therefore, count on low-
quality jobs and role models. Research has it that they end up
being idle in the streets with gangs. Within a short duration of
time, they are forced to adopt the group's life and start
perpetrating crime. Low education, therefore, can be seen from
this perspective as a promoter of increase in crime rate
(Newburger, 2013. P. 301). However, an alternative
interpretation may be given to the same that the gang life is as a
result of poor upbringing and not necessarily low-quality
education.
Poverty is a source of distress and emotional illness due to daily
life struggle. Poor people find it easy to obtain what they can
hardly acquire legitimately by committing violence. Further, use
of force can even earn them more goods and, therefore, end up
practicing crimes such as street knifing and armed robbery that
are the common crimes. These people have low opportunity cost
of crime compared to the rich and hence may not fear the
consequences of such acts. The benefits these actions yield by
far outweighs the risk of being caught. Even in the case where
one is jailed they will again come back to the same habit of
criminal activities since they have no stable families or money.
According to OSullivan (2009, p. 436) with other factors held

7. constant such as morals, it is factual to say that poverty
increases the crime rate.
Crime always follows the needy because, after the jail sentence
one can hardly secure a reputable job due to the criminal
records. The lacks of opportunity in life will in due time cause
them to go back to the crime related acts. This results into a
vicious cycle of bad records track down to the fathers at their
youthful age. In accordance with statistics, more than half of
those in jail had been shown to be earning less than $10,000 per
year before they resulted in crime. Poverty accounts for more
than fifty percent of the money lost in an economy and youth
from lower class bracket commits crime four times more than
those in the middle class.
An unfortunate delinquent kid is more exposed to crime than a
kid from a well of family. This is a result of variation in the
population constituents. These children may at times are
expelled from school due to lack of funds and hence turn to
other ways of making ends meet. Normally, the adolescence
groups are the principal crime offenders. Poor people are also
associated with non-religiousness and weak family
cohesiveness. These cultural factors within the poor are a cause
of crime since personalities with no right morals do not care
about the interests of others.
Tightly populated areas with low living standards and
inadequate housing have been reportedly shown to promote
levels of crime. The better part of this population constitutes of
people who are in their early twenties who are undergoing hard
times and need to redefine their future. Mental illness among
the population resulting from distress is the sole catalyst to
occurrence of such acts as robbery (Miller et al. 2015).
Consistent lack of basic needs prompts these actions in a bid to
secure clothing, food, and other necessities. Crime perpetration
is acceptable in the community of the poor, and it requires less
expertise to undertake the risk. Their living places are more of a
congregation of the needy people and have access to little if no
government services such as security and civil education.

8. Conclusion
Although this paper may not have been so coherent on all
causes of increased crime rate, the studies have shown that there
is a notable correlation between the quality of education,
poverty levels, and the criminal activities. There is enough
evidence that a reduction in poverty can significantly impact on
the crime rate. Therefore, the hypothesis stated at the start of
the paper holds. However, deep research is recommended to
draw the line between other causes of increased crime rate, low-
quality education, and poverty.
References
· In Haymes, S. N., In De, H. M. V., & In Miller, R. J. (2015).
The Routledge handbook of poverty in the United States.
· Newburger, H., Birch, E. L., Wachter, S. M., & Ebrary.
(2013). Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in
Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
· O'Sullivan, A. (2009). Urban economics. Boston: McGraw-
Hill/Irwin