The number of crimes reported to the police rose by 10% between April 2016 and March 2017, but why?

One theory is that young people just want to ‘fit in’ or be respected by ‘olders’, which is a term used in gangs. Once you get involved in gang crimes, it is difficult to get out, therefore young people may be forced to do illegal things that they may not necessarily want to do. Young people are usually dragged into much more illegal things than they thought they were getting into, such as transporting drugs, and teenagers all around the UK would go missing for days due to this. Young people may also do this to live up to their mostly incorrect stereotypes as this seems to be what society expects from young people. Furthermore, young people would want to impress their older ‘friends’ in gangs, and following their orders would therefore impress them.

However, this isn’t one of the only causes of the increase in crime. Homelessness is another huge issue which relates to crime. One incident during the Manchester bombings showed people just how self-centered people can be, when a homeless man was seen stealing things from wounded victims of the bombing, when people thought he was in fact helping them, whereas he was really just helping himself.

Homelessness is one of the biggest problems in London alone, with thousands of people faced with the cold, hard ground of the busy streets of London. This is also one of the largest causes of crimes, as the homeless need to survive somehow, and even if they get caught, they would be living in better conditions than they would’ve currently been, even if it is in prison.

Drug use is a huge problem in the UK, and many people have been arrested for possession and distribution of drugs. People take drugs for many reasons, some of which may be to look ‘cool’, or perhaps they are battling with something difficult in their life and want to forget by using drugs. This may be due to society’s expectations and pressures on people, as not everyone can live up to these challenging expectations. The fact that crime has increased in the past year isn’t very surprising as society is much more of a problem for people now than it was ten years ago.

Ultimately, crime has increased a significant amount, perhaps because of law changes, society and the emergence of more gangs and drug promotion through music.

Jaiya Bhachu, William Perkin Church of England High School