Crime Causation Has Many
Reasons; Keeping Students in School is the Top Priority

By Rance Thomas

What can be done to reduce the increasing crime rate in the United States? Even before Covid-19, it had increased, but with the pandemic it has increased significantly. As a result, there are some individuals and organizations attempting to deal with this situation.
However, before individuals and organizations can be effective in dealing with this increase, they need to understand the causes of crime. One statistical reality is that approximately 75 percent of crime is committed by school dropouts and approximately 75 percent of inmates in prison are school dropouts as well. Therefore, this needs to be an important consideration.
In the long term there needs to be a strong effort to do what is necessary to help students remain in school. This involves working with students, teachers, and parents to help students be successful in school. This includes helping them academically, emotionally, and socially. This is very important because if students drop out of school, they find it very difficult to find work to enable them to earn enough to take care of themselves.
Because of this, many turn to crime as an attempt to survive, and some develop a fatalistic attitude about life or a feeling of hopelessness. Some may even tend to think there is no point in obeying laws when they will not survive a full lifetime.
Further, to have an effective impact upon the crime rate for those who have already dropped out of school, there needs to be a strong effort to work with these individuals as well. This includes establishing social relationships with them and helping them find legitimate work that will enable them to take care of themselves. This may also include working with some to help them return to school or to get an education.
In other words, there needs to be an effort made to help them have hope for a better future without having to turn to crime. In some cases, the high crime rate is also due to frustration and anger. This is demonstrated in St. Louis where the murder rate during September has already surpassed the murder rate for all of 2019, especially among young males. This is also due, to some extent, to the COVID-19 conditions we are faced with at this time.
Social Science shows that as human beings we all need social contact. This is especially true for the young, and the restrictions we are currently facing can create frustration and anger. Therefore, some tend to strike out with violent behavior at others at times due to this suppressed anger.
These are some of the things that need to be done in order to be successful in reducing the crime rate..
As a Professor Emeritus of Sociology/Criminal Justice, I taught Sociology for 30 years at Lewis & Clark Community College and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. During those years, I did research and taught in all areas of Sociology.
Sociology is the science of society and its social relations, institutions, and organizations. Although I taught all aspects of social relations, one of my primary focuses was upon Criminal Justice that included the criminal justice system, crime, corrections, etc. As a result, I had a strong focus upon learning and teaching about the crime rates, imprisonment, recidivism (repeated crimes and returns to prison).
Thus, Lewis & Clark Community College established an endowed scholarship in my name for Criminal Justice students. I only mention this to emphasize the strong effort made to provide an explanation for the cause of, and prevention of, crime and recidivism. This is very important today due to the increasing number of crimes being committed in our cities and elsewhere.

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