Inequality causes crime – financial strain
Polacko 21 – Matthew Polacko is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Département de science politique, at the Université du Québec à Montréal, PhD in Politics and International Relations from Royal Holloway, University of London (2021), an MSc in Public Policy and Management from King’s College London, and an MA in History from McMaster University, (“Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality – An Overview”, 10/20/21, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/spp-2021-0017/html?lang=en)//CG
Rates of violent crime are lower in more equal countries (Hsieh and Pugh 1993; Whitworth 2012). This is largely because more equal countries have less poverty, which leads to less people being desperate about their situation, as lower-income individuals have been shown to commit more crime. Relatedly, according to strain theory, more unequal societies place higher social value in achieving economic success, while providing lower means to achieve it (Merton 1938). This generates strain, which may lead more individuals to pursue crime as a means of attaining financial success. At the opposite end of the income spectrum, the wealthy in more equal countries are also less likely to exploit others and commit fraud or exhibit other anti-social behaviour, partly because they feel less of a need to cut corners to get ahead, or to make money (Dorling 2017: 152–153). Homicides also tend to rise with inequality. Daly (2016) reveals that inequality predicts homicide rates better than any other variable and accounts for around half of the variance in murder rates between countries and American states. Roughly 90% of American homicides are committed by men, and since the majority of homicides occur over status, inequality raises the stakes of disputes over status amongst men.