The Poverty Spiral and the Breakdown of Social Order: The Causal Relationship Between Poverty and Crime This paper shall examine the relationship between poverty in an urban neighborhood setting and the crime rate. Historically, neighborhoods experiencing extreme poverty have been seen to experience above average crime rates, especially in violent crime. The traditional view has been that this is a symptom of economic need, that crimes are performed to augment or replace income. However, this would not explain the preponderance of violent crime to which there is no benefit to the offender by the crimeÂ’s commission. A survey of the available literature shall show that the nature of the causal relationship between crime and poverty may, in fact, find its origin in the social alienation of poverty. Pages: 15 Bibliography: 8 source(s) listed Filename: 20449 Crime Poverty Neighborhood.doc Price: 134.25