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To What Extent Would Sociologists Agree That Lack of Opportunity Causes People to Commit Crime?

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To what extent would Sociologists agree that lack of opportunity causes people to commit crime?

In this essay I will be discussing this question, ‘To what extent would Sociologists agree that lack of opportunity causes people to commit crime?’.

Lack of opportunity can be a vital reason why many individuals may commit crime. What is meant by the term ‘ lack of opportunity’ is that some individuals may not have things such as; an education, a sustainable home, a job etc.

By not having an education some individuals may have not received qualifications needed to get a job, and by not being able to get a job means not being able to earn money. This can lead to an individual committing crime as they need to find a way of earning a living.

In addition by not having a sustainable home either in the past or the present can draw a person into crime. This may be because by not having a sustainable home they may get moved around regularly, and by getting moved around regularly it may cause difficulties in the area of education and work. This may be because they could get moved quite far away from their previous home just after they have started to settle in into the area and by getting moved it may well mean they might need to find a new school or a new job. In some circumstances it might be a little difficult to find an employer who will take you on, meaning you could be left without a job and like I had already mentioned you may resort to crime to earn a living. In addition by regularly moving in and out of different schools could result in an individual not receiving a good education, this then could lead to them failing any important exams meaning they do not receive any qualifications to get a job.

Furthermore if you have parents who are unemployed they may not be able to provide for you as much as parents who are employed. This can lead a child to commit crime so that they could earn a bit of money that their parents couldn’t give them.

However on the other hand some people may not agree that lack of opportunity is entirely to blame for someone committing crime, they may say that there are several other reasons involved in an individual committing crime. These reasons may be;

Background: A person’s background can resort to them committing a crime. This is because they may come from a deprived background causing them to commit a crime although you could say this links in with lack of opportunity as they could come from a background were chances of success were very low.

Biological: They may feel that there are biological reasons involved such as a person’s characteristics e.g. they may get so called ‘kicks’ out of crime or they can’t but help commit crime.

Subculture: An individual may get involved with a group of people who commit crime for a living and who say it is common and it is the new ‘trend’, making an individual feel that it is a norm and so it is ‘okay’ to commit crime when it clearly isn’t.

Labelling: An individual could feel that being labelled by people such as the police only spurs them on to commit crime as they may feel that they living up to the label. An individual could feel a sense of frustration that they are always being labelled as a ‘criminal’ or are always getting stopped and searched by the police because they look ‘suspicious’, and after a little while they may feel that if they are being treated like a criminal and they are expected to become a criminal they might as well be a criminal.

In conclusion I feel that although there are many other reasons such as labelling which play a big part in someone committing crime, I would say that it is mostly due to lack of opportunity. This is because I feel it is one of the biggest reason someone commits crime and one of the most popular reason someone commits crime. Most criminals commit crime because they have nothing else to keep them busy such as a job or education and without a job they need to earn some money so they resort to crime, and although other reasons such as biological reasons lead to crime I don’t feel it is the most common reason why someone commits crime.

So overall I feel lack of opportunity is the main reason why someone commits crime.

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