The state of Nevada is one of the 50 states in America; located 39° 148’ to the north and 119°743’ to the east. What makes this state a pleasant place to live in is its low cost of living, due less tax imposition, lower health costs and low pollution, however crime rates are a warring trend here. According to the federal laws, each state has the freedom of maintaining its own independent jurisdiction in the areas of criminal justice system. As a matter of state policy, each state is responsible of determining what constitutes a crime with an appropriate form of punishment (Wilson 1987).
In the past several years, the crime rate in Nevada has been on the increase according to a report from the FBI’s “Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)”. The most common nature of crimes in the state of Nevada is property crimes and violent crimes. In the city of Las Vegas only, the property crime rate is 57,552 while that of violent crime rate is 9,158. Most of the crimes begun in 1981 but its peak was in the mid 1990s a time when the state was introducing casinos.
Since the operations of casinos begun, the rates of major crime rates increased to 6.7% as compared to when there were no casinos. The crimes involved murder, forcible rape robbery, property offences like burglary and larceny. When this number is compared to the national chart trend, it is evidently higher by about 1.26 times during the 1990s, a time when there was a tremendous decrease in violent crime rates in United States (Glase and Palla 2004).
A notable difference is that Nevada is listed to be one of the last states to record a decrease in crime rate compared to the rest of the states. There was a drop after the mid 1990s crisis but soon after the crime rate raise in the state begun to rise in the year 2000 (Nevada Division of Child & Family Services nd).
Further evidence show that from 1960, the rate of criminal activities like murder rate stood at lows of 21 murders per 100,000 but those figures had risen to 200 murders per 100,000 people by 1996. Records of about 197 murders were confirmed to have taken place in Nevada in 2003 where the number per residents is said to be 100,000 while compared to 129 murders confirmed in 2000.
The violent crime rates have increased to 20% from 2003 to 2007 while the property crime rate has increased to 12% during the same duration (Bureau of the Census 2011). It is a given fact that Nevada has been following the same pattern in property crimes and violent crimes over the years.
Nevada is ranked among the most criminal state in the nation. Some of the cross county regional trends complied by the federal bureau of investigation records that Las Vegas has the highest violent crime rate up to 770 per 100,000 crimes are committed while Reno reports the second highest crime rate especially murder crimes. While this is the case with the mentioned counties, Washoe was recorded with a rather low rate report of violent crimes committed compared to several other counties an estimated 84 violent crimes for every 100,000 residents (Cullen & Ball 2011).
The state’s department of criminology believes that most of the crimes are usually committed by the youths and that delinquency is the most common phenomenon during the adolescent period for most youths but soon they deter from criminal activities. Having this in mind, one way of reducing crime rates will be to set up a program that will help the youth and increase the supervision of youth behaviors (Harrison. and Beck. 2004).
Other ways that would help to curb the crime problems include increasing police patrol especially in the youth hangout places mostly after school hours; provide ways through which people especially the youth can acquire money through legal activities, have a comprehensive coordinated work force by the government and the other people serving agencies. In addition, build trustworthy coalitions of youth serving organizations.
References
Bureau of the Census, 2011. Poverty in the United States: Current population Reports: Consumer Income, Series P60-201. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Cullen, L. & Ball, E. (2011). Criminological Theory 5th Ed. New York: Sage Publications.
Glase, L. E. & Palla, S. (2004). Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin: Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003. Washington D.C.: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.
Harrison, P. M. & Beck, A. J. (2004). Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. Nevada Department of Corrections. Web.
Nevada Division of Child & Family Services (nd). The Uniform Crime Reports; 1960-2003. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Web.
Wilson , W. J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner-City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.