While Las Vegas is an ordinary city with schools, churches and neighborhoods and attracts thousands of new residents each year, its downtown area was built to attract tourism that has made it one of the wealthiest cities in the country. This growth, along with the city’s unique commercial foundation has created challenges for the city. McNamee (2020), “Las Vegas is one of the county’s leaders in personal and property crimes, as well as suicide rates, alcohol consumption, and illegal drug use. The city also suffers the modern urban ills of air and water pollution, and the roads are choked with increasingly heavy traffic as new suburbs spring up in all directions.”

Social Factors that Contribute to Crime

Because of the city’s substantial tourism, much of which is targeted in entertaining and includes heavy amounts of alcohol and illegal drug use, the jails see a revolving door of tourists who find themselves in trouble. However, most of the world is unaware of the people who struggle to survive in one of the wealthiest cities in America. Treanor (2020), “According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, Las Vegas is the worst metropolitan area in the U.S. for housing low-income families. There are plenty of reasons for it: there are a lot of low paying jobs in the valley; not that many subsidized homes, and there’s the shadow of the housing crisis. 71,000 Nevadans are extremely low income. For every one hundred of them, there are just ten affordable places to live.” Without affordable housing, and decent paying jobs, individuals often turn to criminal behavior to provide for themselves and their families.

Explaining Criminal Behavior

Some sociological concepts to criminology define crime as a normal and necessary social event. According to the University of Chicago, which conducted research on the social ecology of the city of Chicago, the everyday behavior of people is controlled by the social and ecological climate in which they dwell. Criminal behavior is not the function of personal traits or choice but is linked to environmental conditions that fail to provide residents with proper human relations and development. (Siegel, 2018) Socioeconomic disadvantages have become part of American society. The social structure has created advantages of those with wealth, power, and prestige, while lower-class families struggle to find safe housing, pay for higher education, and find jobs. These lower-income families are driven to desperate measures and turn to crime and substance abuse to cope. Individuals in lower-class neighborhoods also may have to learn to defend themselves from criminal groups who flourish in neighborhoods incapable of retaining law abiding citizens. This further promotes delinquent youth.

Land Use, Property Values, Transportation, Retail

Las Vegas, NV is a temporary tourist destination for people all over the world, and still a place where many permanent residents call home. According to the Word Population Review, there are approximately 662,000 residents in Las Vegas, NV (World Population Review, 2020.). Astonishingly, however, there are 49.9 million people who visited Las Vegas, NV in 2019 (Lupianai, 2019.) With many of these individuals only visiting the “Strip”, this creates almost two cities; Las Vegas proper and the “Strip”. The “Strip” can be looked at as the city center. Moving away from it takes away the glitz and glamour of the town, unfolding into a metropolis of stucco houses with hacienda tile roofs. The median property price on the “Strip” is $500,300 (Andreevska, 2019.). The median property price for the overall city of Las Vegas is $383,900 (Andreveska, 2019). This shows that as property moves away from the hub Las Vegas, the general property price decreases dramatically. Transportation within Las Vegas is also based heavily on the “Strip” versus Las Vegas Proper areas. On the strip, there are monorails, busses, taxies, and ride sharing services. When getting away from the “Strip”, there are of course ride sharing services, but what about public transportation? The “Las Vegas” tourism website describes its main form of public transportation as “The Deuce” which is operated by the Regional Transportation Committee (Las Vegas, 2020.) They have two focused routes that take people from the city to the “Strip” but also offer bus rides throughout the city. There is a stark contrast in the provision of public transportation. Where there is money to be made, the “Strip”, there is a multitude of transit opportunities while the rest of Las Vegas has the one public transportation option of “The Deuce”.

Criminal Hot Spots

Las Vegas, Nevada is an extremely popular spot for people to take some time out for vacation. There is no wonder that there can be a high amount of crime happening within the city. According to, Spears (2019), “Sitting at number one for the second year in a row is MGM Grand with 2,492 calls for service in 2018.” Of course, the Las Vegas strip is a hot spot, and this is where a lot of crime in the city takes place. Many of the calls that take place are most of the time minor crimes, but they still happen regardless of how major or minor they are.

Socioeconomic Status and Values in Criminological Theory

Since Las Vegas is a popular spot for tourists and for many people to get away, the socioeconomic status of people can be very widespread. People from all over come to Las Vegas, so I believe that there is no specific status of people that commit crimes. Given the specific area, people may commit crimes in this city because at the time they may be under the influence of drugs, and/or alcohol. I only say this because again, it is a popular spot to get away, and for people to let go. During the pandemic, it seems that crime has risen. According to, Komenda (2020), “Bad behavior, anxiety, unemployment, the inability to blow off steam is causing a lot of this to occur.” All these factors can lead a person to act more erratically than usual.

All I need is a conclusion I can’t seem to finish it. Please help me out as it is due in a bit. Very sorry for the time crunch.