Why were towns in the American often violent and lawless places?

Money problems such as Employment, inheritance, peoples own money and mostly gold, caused people to be jealous and they then felt the need to battle. Some people often stole other peoples gold.

Many of the problems resulted in depression, which led to drinking, which then resulted in many other things.

There was a large influx of foreign people coming into the west this could have been because they were escaping persecution from their native countries.

Prostitution was also an issue. Women who had little or no money were forced into prostitution either because it was a last result or someone else had pressured them into it. Many of these people were foreign women. Prostitution caused al lot of fights in places such as saloons, as the men were under the influence of alcohol.

Due to the fact that many individuals settling in the West were from all around the world there would have been a lot of different people with different backgrounds living together.

Racism was an issue. There were clashes of Race, religion and it was hard for people to communicate as they spoke different languages.

Not only did cultural differences play a part in person's perspectives of each other, personality did too.

There were a lot of robberies that took place in the early development of the west Banks used to robbed, people would steal cows and horses this is known as rustling and was very common, trains and wagons were robbed, stores and Burglary was also an issue.

As a consequence of the reasons above, citizens needed some form of protection; they needed to look after their selves, their family and their home. This is why many folk owned weapons. The American constitution used to state (and in some states still do)... "Every man has the right to carry a gun". This is a very important part of lawlessness in the west as in some cases carrying a gun would get out of hand and resulted in murder or accidental deaths, but there was no way in which this cycle could come to an end as no one was there to stop it. People were the law.

There were also gunslingers present in the towns, which often made shootouts and robbed banks and trains some good examples and famous gunslingers are the likes of: Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Jesse James and the youngsters. These people were forever committing crimes and there would be High rewards for them and their captures.

There were towns in the west known as "Notorious towns", these were so full of crime that people were to scared to enter them. A good example of a notorious town would be Clanton Town (also known as The notorious Clanton town), it was the home of many gunslingers and cowboys.

This is where vigilantes came in. Though they helped to keep terrorists (gangs and gunslingers) restrained many people disputed that they did more harm than good.

In conclusion the lawlessness in the American west was a continuous circle of problems. Things led from one thing to another and this resulted in more and more crime. The main reason this happened was due to the remoteness of the west this is only one of many problems yet it is a very significant factor in the subject of law and order. If there wasn't such a distance between states then law and order would have been easier to control.