It has become a complex issue to combat social problems with ever-increasing issues of theft in the modern world. The world has become much advanced as communication has exceeded from its expected boundaries. Concerns for security purpose have become seemingly very imperative in this regards.
The article written by Jennifer Saranow Schultz namely Rising Cost of Identity Theft for Consumers introduces us to a newer kind of theft referred to identity theft. Sir Thomas More has relatively discussed a framework of countering the issue of theft in his book Utopia in which an ideal of a socio-politically balanced society has been projected. This paper illustrates contemporary social problem of theft from a newspaper article along with a framework to counter it as proposed by Sir Thomas More.
The author of the article Jennifer Saranow claims that identity theft is an ever increasing social problem. In the advanced technological era, it has increased its measure of prevalence. The author has reported a great deal of statistics to present a thorough scenario of the situation. Estimated figures that have been cited from the 2011 identity fraud survey reports are claiming that around 8.1 million account holders have suffered from identity theft (Saranow).
A yearly report of the survey has incorporated enhancement of social issue. The author claims that identity theft is being undertaken in almost every part of the world with little efforts put by thieves to take up financial details. With reference to the article, identity theft has been defined as an act which is undertaken to take financial gains from the listed information (Saranow).
If a thorough research is conducted then it becomes visible that ever increasing statistics of identity theft have contributed in a more interrelated problem in a society. For majority of people, theft may remain stealing of belongings but now its definition has become vast as now thieves are able to steal identity of a person. Because of identity theft, a great deal of professionals had to come across difficulties such as defaulter fines and financial loss.
The method to counter identity theft is to apply the proposed methods by Sir Thomas More. In his book Utopia, Sir Thomas More has presented an ideal of socio-political society where every theft is examined and then thieves are punished for their act.
According to Thomas, a thief who undertakes a theft must be punished within the same frequency. For instance, if theft has been conducted by slaughtering the other person then the culprit is supposed to be slaughtered in front of members of society so that it could become an exemplary execution (More, Robinson and Sacks).
However, debate has also been noted in the book of Thomas More with respect to crime that has been committed. The author seemingly presented an argument for those who believe that theft must not be punished. The author has also supported his claim with different executions that could be applied to counter social evils such as identity theft (Lupton).
With the application of method of Thomas More that stresses on punishing theft with respect to their sins, it could be said that a great deal of social problems could be countered. In case of identity theft by stealing information from advanced computing systems, thieves must be found with accurate tracing softwares. The transactions of financial details are recorded by almost all financial institutions. To a certain degree, financial institutions can be considered as responsible for such thefts because they lack security checks.
As Sir Thomas More claimed that those punishments should be sentences that do not finish the evil mind of culprit right away. Thieves must be kept in prison for a time period that would be enough to change his personality. Furthermore, the concept of socio-politically sound society states that everything that is looted must come back as a price paid by the culprit (More, Robinson and Sacks).
The alarming statistical information provided in the article by Jennifer refers to a system that has become complexly in-combatable. The tyranny of culprits in the modern world cannot be practiced for a longer period as the methods of Thomas More is able to provide combating measures.
As Thomas More has affirmed in his book that money should stay stably in every class so that the demand does not rise selfishly. Financial institutions need to make sure that they have plans to help those who lack money and power. If punishment is considered as a way out to combat then it shall also be noted that foundations of security concerns in the advanced world are also required (Lupton).
Through the above discussion, it comes to our understanding that identity theft is increasing with higher percentage every year. It is because of the increase in the identity theft that people have started to face troubles in their financial activities. The discussion also claims that avid response to thefts must be undertaken as it refers to a socio-politically sound society. The article written by Jennifer provides a background to a social problem which is potential to be combated by the proposed method of Sir Thomas More.
Works Cited
Lupton, J. The Utopia of Sir Thomas More. New York: BiblioLife, 2009.
More, T, R Robinson and D. Sacks. Utopia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
Saranow, J. “The Rising Cost of Identity Theft for Consumers.” The New York Times 9 February 2011.