Crime As A Social Problem: How To Write An Essay?


Thousands of crimes are committed every day, and probably hundreds are occurring right now in the world. Someone somewhere will be killed, robbed, and raped until you read this article to its the end. Without a doubt, crime can be seen as the plague of society. No matter what is done, nothing can really stop it.

Nevertheless, the key to solving the problem lays deeply in it and only through research of every aspect of the problem it can be found. That is exactly why this topic is so popular! You have endless scopes to discover, various information to collect, numerous questions to find answers to, and freedom to compose any personal topic dealing with crime.

But still, all essays on crime are similar to their aim – to discover and to help. You need to realize that any cause-effect connections you may find can indeed help to understand the problem better, develop new methods of preventing, reducing or dealing with crimes and criminals and reveal many other useful things.

How to write crime essay?

Writing an essay on crime is almost the same as writing any other essay. However, remember that you need to be extremely precise with the information you include in your essay – it’s better to check the trustworthiness and accuracy of everything you decided to take on the Internet. What’s more, it is a good idea to rely on statistics and numbers.

Moreover, it is better to choose a specific topic for your essay – that’s how you make it informative and newsworthy. Picking too broad topic will result in writing about everything and nothing. At the same time, choosing a narrow topic may be difficult to write due to the lack of available information.

So, analyze your topic and find the golden middle. These are the main differences in a crime essay.

Here are some basic recommendations:

  • Come up with the topic – not too narrow, not too broad, most importantly – interesting for you.
  • Write an outline and stick to it – any essay needs to be structured both for easier writing and for better perception.
  • Be interested in what you write about.

The best structure for the essay on crime

Any essay should contain three parts – introduction, main body, and conclusion. They may also consist of paragraphs for better understanding while reading. So when you have finally decided on your topic, it is nice to make an outline – it is where all parts of your essay will be highlighted.

Here is a free example of an outline for the essay “Correlations of criminal behavior”:

1. Introduction – here you present all the background information needed to understand your ideas, it is the basis of your research. You may also give some definitions if needed.

2. The main body – to state all your ideas.

  • Gender – discover who does more crimes, men or women. Try to explain or find explanations for the question “why”.
  • Race and immigration – examine people of which race is more likely than others committing crimes. Also, explore how can the status of immigrant influence criminality.
  • Early life – enumerate which factors in early life may be associated with committing crimes later. These may include trauma, family size and relations, alcohol and drug addiction in the family, bullying, low school performance, and many others.
  • Religion – there are a few studies about how religiosity may influence criminality. Discover whether religion increase or decrease crime, how and why. Maybe, different religions have different effects.
  • Political ideology – explore various political ideologies and how they encourage people to behave themselves. Are there any which obviously push people into committing a crime?
  • Psychological traits – explain how psychological background may influence a person. Describe some mental illnesses which may make people aggressive and destructive. Find some statistics to prove your statements.
  • Socioeconomic factors – examine people of which social or economic status are more prone to commit a crime, why? Explain also how the economic situation in family, city, and country may influence criminality. You may even write a poverty and crime essay.

3. Conclusion – make a derivation of everything you have stated. Keep in mind that no new ideas or statements are needed here.

4. References – add a list of the sources you have used in your essay (if needed).

Causes of crime essay

It is doubtless that the government and authorities try to prevent crimes (which is a great idea, by the way!).

Nevertheless, it is still occurring.

The problem with this is that the majority of people can’t understand where it all comes from. To cope with the problem we need to spread the awareness of why crime is done because “just insanity” isn’t usually the answer.

If you decided to write such an essay, here are some ideas for you to consider in your essay:

  • Physical abnormalities – it is still believed that people who encounter some features of appearance are more likely to commit a crime. It is stated that these people have smaller heads, bigger jaws, and ears and are of a certain weight and height. Another determining factor is race.
  • Mental illnesses and psychological disorders – there are some illnesses which make people generally more aggressive.
  • Social and economic factors – it is a well-known fact that people of lower social status commit more crimes. The same is with the economy – the poorer the country is, the more crime is committed.
  • Income and education – it was revealed that educated people are less likely to commit a crime compared to those who are uneducated. What is more, unemployment is regarded as one of the most widespread reasons for crime.
  • White-collar crime – it is a prevalent crime among deputies and high officials. They include bribery, abuse of status, bureaucracy, and others.

Hate crime essay: what’s best to cover?

Hate crime is committed against a group of people or someone who belongs to it. As a rule, race and religion are the main factors. Hate crime itself is a violent act towards a person or a group of people due to their affiliation with a group or organization.

Thousands of people all around the world are suffering since they just profess the religion someone doesn’t like, have another color of skin or encounter some even less noticeable differences. Consider writing a does the death penalty deter crime essay in this context.

Thus this type of crime is indeed worth highlighting. Here is a free sample for you to pick some ideas.

Cybercrime essay: several hints

Cybercrime is a relatively new problem which develops with the Internet and technologies. Only fifteen years ago there wasn’t such a problem. However, it is expected that the global cost of cybercrime will surmount $6 trillion!

Most widespread types of cybercrime include fraud, hacking, identity theft, scamming, computer viruses, ransomware, DDoS attack, botnets, spamming, phishing, social engineering, malvertising, cyberstalking, software piracy, cyberbullying and many others.

This is why the topic is really up-to-date. So you may look through this free example to know where to begin this broad topic.

Final thoughts

All in all, crime is a newsworthy scope to explore and write essays on. Unfortunately, crimes are constantly occurring, and there are lots of information and statistics you may need to discover some specific questions.

Don’t hesitate to examine something you’re really interested in, no matter how “important” it is considered! Good luck!


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Jared Houdi
Jared Houdi is a professional essay writer in the IT & Computer Science field. Having a huge experience in writing, he can help you with any type of assignment, from a simple essay to a research paper or even a dissertation. By choosing Jared, you can be completely sure that you will get your paper of the best quality and before the deadline.
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