Philadelphia Business Daily

Here's a good one: What types or kinds of social issues are present here?

I would like to study the crime rate and different crimes that occur in larger cities compared to small cities. I would like to see if it is really true when people say that smaller cities are safer than larger cities. What type of social issues are involved here? Please don't tell me smaller cities aren't safer, this is for a school report and I will do that research on my own. Please provide insightful answers. I seriously would like to know what types of social issues people think are involed?

Public Comments

1. Education and socioeconomic backgrounds are two that I can think of. The education available in small cities may be different. What type of person is more likely to live in a small city versus a large city could play an important role. Side note: it could also be interesting to compare your results in different postindustrial societies. Does a different society/culture have different results? If it does that can be used to support that safety within a city is caused by social factors.
2. in a large city over crowding is a big issue. people get on each others nerves. criminals can blend in better in a large city and there is public housing in large cities. there is more poverty in one place and sometimes poverty can cause crime.
3. Well I think one issue you would have to consider is whether or not you can prove a crime that took place actually got reported. So for example in a larger city a crime like rape might actually be reported and investigated, whereas in a small city they may not report it at all. So it would be hard to prove your statistics. From my own experience, I have reported crimes in a big city, and a police officer took a report of that crime. I have reported the same crime in a small town, and a police officer never came, or if they did come, it took them 3 days to drive 1 1/2 miles, and they never took a report. So the dilema you will have is proving that crimes are being reported, and that the crime that really was reported is the crime that showed up on the police officers books, and then how are you going to prove the crimes that took place, but didn't get reported. Sometimes a bigger crime gets reported as a smaller crime to help that cities crime rate. I think one of the social issues you will encounter is the "good old boy network" you tend to see in smaller towns. Whereas in smaller towns, they police could be related to the drug dealers, so the integritity of the arrest may be compromised. In a small town, "John Smith" might not get arrested because he is the police chiefs brother. A social issue you may encounter in a big city is that they might under report a crime to make the crime statistics look better than they really are. The big city looks like a safer place to be. I think in a big city it might be political to under report crimes, to make it appear that the crime rate dropped. I bet this is going to be an interesting study for you. You also have to keep in mind that a small town is more likely to re-write their log books to cover up crimes, whereas it might be harder for the staff in a big city police department to doctor the log books. Very interesting.