Community organizations serve a great purpose since it not only brings people together for a common cause but also ensure that a particular way of life is adopted as a standard. The moment communities come together, the issues of delinquency and immorality are better addressed since the odd ones out can be isolated for effective help – this is the basis of community policing which has been hailed as a useful strategy in addressing crime. Community organizations may include non-profit organizations and corporate social responsibility outreach programs that are aimed at improving various aspects of the social and economic domain. Conflicts and crime increase when there are limited opportunities and the community is not organized toward creating a positive and enabling environment. Thus, community organizations play a significant role in reducing conflicts and crime.
Conflict and crime stem from the chronic inequality that leads to poverty in some parts of the country. Capitalism has always been blamed for the inequalities in the world; it is through the use of capitalism that some people have become extremely rich while others have lived to die in poverty. The sad reality about communities living in poverty is that there is a vicious cycle that continues to affect every generation in that family. That is, since the parents are poor, they can barely afford to educate their children, which further leads to a higher probability of the children being poor in the future – unless the vicious cycle is broken by community organizations, these families will continue to live and die in poverty. This is contrary to the extremely rich whose wealth will be shared among the children; since the wealth will still multiply over time, the future generations will still as rich as their parents. There is a close relationship between poverty and crime; people living in poverty are more likely to believe that the rich are responsible for their suffering, which pushes them to cause conflicts and crime. Thus, aside from the government, which has the responsibility of developing and uplifting its people, the only other way that the community can avoid poverty is through community organizations. O’Laughlin (2008) offers his insight concluding that corporates have a role to play in addressing injustices in the community. However, there is a limitation to how much goodwill corporates can do with corporate social responsibility (CSR). In his argument, the author states that CSR can do so much since the corporates have their own interests, which means that they are not better placed to b relied upon to address injustices and inequalities. To the extent that CSR can achieve, the impact in the communities is massive since the community outreach programs can offer job opportunities that can increase money circulation, thereby reducing poverty and the urge to engage in conflict and crime.
Community organizations are at the forefront of championing the welfare of their people, thereby reducing exploitation thereby addressing injustice. Industries such as coal mining can exploit the people by offering hope for a better future, but they leave once their interests have been satisfied. Extraction industries are very common, especially in rural areas where they come with the promise that they will bring job opportunities for the residents and help in building better infrastructure for the people. It is a known reality that the conflict and crime rates can be significantly reduced by the provision of resources such as jobs and other growth opportunities. The people in that community can leverage the jobs to get better employment opportunities, thereby breaking the cycle of poverty in most families in the community. Bell & York (2010) argue that extraction companies can take advantage of communities to the point of leaving them with high unemployment rates and a polluted environment once the resources are exhausted. The authors argue that the extraction companies fail to honor their promises to the people, which creates resistance and anger towards similar industries – it is this reality that led to the establishment of “Friends of Coal” in West Virginia as the company sought to maintain the good image among in the community. The establishment of fair and strong community organizations can ensure that the welfare of the people in the community is assured even after the resources are exhausted. They can do this by pushing these corporations to build institutions that will empower the people, thereby reducing over-reliance on the single entity. With the availability of enough resources and support for communities in low-income areas, the rates of conflict and crime will be addressed since most of the young people will have stable sources where they can utilize their skills to earn a living.
The high cost of university education means that the only other alternative for young people is the reliance on community programs. The high cost of university education limits the number of people who can successfully join and complete their studies. Eligible students from low-income households suffer the most since they are unable to join college, and yet they have the qualifications and ability to. The ever-increasing cost of education at the tertiary level means that the few who are able to afford it will need to have middle-class or upper-class parents, or they will need to have the luck to get scholarships to study for relatively free. Since it is not every student from a low-income household will be lucky, the many that will miss out will have to search for alternative means to earn a living. In extreme cases, if some of these are mixed with bad companies that are aligned towards crime, the students who have the potential for a better future will also be sucked into the life of crime. The few that will be patient will have to rely on programs that are meant to help the community. CSR is supposed to help in such cases through the funding of projects that can be established within the community to help young people. In cases where community programs are not availed, young and bright minds are wasted in acts such as substance abuse that has the potential to destroy the direction of their life. Research by Nordin (2018) showed that the more people join tertiary institutions, the more crime rates decline. This relationship is validated by the argument that the moment these young people join tertiary institutions, they are exposed to a wider range of opportunities that can help them avoid a life of substance abuse and crime.
Community-based non-profit organizations that seek to address drug and substance abuse are the only practical way that communities can reduce the issue. Rehabilitation treatments are very expensive that most ordinary Americans may find it impractical for them to check themselves or their loved ones into one. Giorgi (2021) states that a 30-day program can cost up to $10,000 while on an outpatient care system: this can rise to $80,000 for residential treatment within the same period. Moreover, the daily costs in a detox program are so high as well since one may have to pay up to $800 per 30-day program. The high cost of treatment means that a family from a low-income household may not be able to afford the treatment that is necessary to break the cycle of drug and substance abuse. Most of the communities living in poverty suffer many social challenges, such as a high unemployment rate and high substance abuse. The fact that there are no opportunities to break that cycle means that future generations are more likely to live a life of poverty. Most community-based non-profit organizations prioritize helping the community, which removes the variable of money. Thus, this means that most of the addicts that are willing to leave that habit have the ability to get the help they need so that they can seek opportunities to reverse the direction of their lives. Therefore, these community-based programs can be the only hope that most communities need to change the fortunes of the people.
In conclusion, community organizations play a significant role in addressing the issues of conflict and crime through the establishment of various initiatives. For instance, corporate social responsibility may be aimed at opening projects that can empower members of the community. More importantly, community organizations can utilize community-based non-profit organizations to ensure that opportunities that are normally, out of reach to most of the people in the community are made available for the benefit of all. Therefore, community-based organizations should be leveraged to help low-income communities that have been left behind due to various injustices in society.
References
Nordin, M. (2018). Does eligibility for tertiary education affect crime rates? Quasi-experimental evidence. Journal of quantitative criminology, 34(3), 805-829.
Bell, S. E., & York, R. (2010). Community economic identity: The coal industry and ideology construction in West Virginia. Rural Sociology, 75(1), 111-143.
O’Laughlin, B. (2008). Governing capital? Corporate social responsibility and the limits of regulation. Development and Change, 39(6), 945-957.
Giorgi, A. (2021, August 11). How much does alcohol rehab usually cost? WebMD. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/addiction-treatment-recovery/alcohol/how-much-does-alcohol-rehab-really-cost
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