UNEMPLOYMENT,IMPRISONMENT, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF ACCUMULATION: HISTORICAL CONTINGENCY IN THE RUSCHE-KIRCHHEIMER HYPOTHESIS*

This study explores the relationship between punishment and social structure by combining the work of Rusche and Kirchheimer with current theorizing regarding social structures of accumulation (SSAs). Specifically, we theorize that the unemployment-imprisonment (U-I) relationship is historically contingent. In particular, we argue that qualitative changes in the configuration of labor markets, state strategies for managing surplus populations, and international relations across SSAs and stages within them result in changes in the magnitude and direction of the U-I relationship. In other words, changes in the qualitative relations among capital, labor, and the state are reflected in quantitative changes in the relationship between rates of unemployment and imprisonment. We hypothesize that three stages of the Fordist SSA (exploration, 1933–1947; consolidation, 1948–1966; decay, 1967–1979) will manifest varying levels of a positive and significant U-I relationship, while the first stage of the new globalized, cyber-technology SSA (1980–1992) will be characterized by a negative U-I relationship due to the co-emergence of a (semi)permanent underclass and an intensification of punitiveness. We test this model using a structurally periodized analysis to determine if the relationship between rates of unemployment and new court admissions to prison (net of rates of violent crime) differs across the four periods studied. Our analysis of the U-I relationship within each SSA phase, and time-varying parameter tests of the periodization of twentieth-century capitalist development, indicate that the U-I relationship is indeed historically contingent and warrants further structurally periodized analysis.     

Welfare and property crime

In 1996 the U.S. federal government enacted a welfare reform bill aimed at reducing public assistance to the poor. This legislation may have implications for future levels of property crime. In this study we examine whether differences in levels of AFDC assistance and rates of welfare participation among 406 large metropolitan counties affected variation in burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Regression analyses controlled for the potential effects of family structure, divorce, unemployment, and a number of other variables. The results confirmed links between welfare and property crime suggested by strain, social support, and a version of social disorganization theory. Both monetary assistance levels and participation rates were associated negatively with all property crimes.     

Prison commitments,crime, and unemployment: A theoretical and empirical specification for the United States, 1933–1985

This paper examines sources for the changing commitment rates to U.S. state prisons (PCR) from 1933 to 1985 using a variety of time-series techniques. Theoretically, it resolves ambiguous interpretations of how crime, unemployment, and imprisonment are related. Hypotheses that crime and punishment are in equilibrium are rejected. Our final specification supports theories integrating institutionally endogenous and socially exogenous causes of prison use and includes feedback effects between crime and punishment. We reached several general conclusions. (1) Changes in PCR are due partly to changes in the levels of unemployment, age composition of the population, and military active-duty rates. (2) Effects of the criminal justice system, captured as autoregressive institutional drift, account for approximately half of the year-to-year fluctuations in the PCR. The contemporaneous prison discharge rate also influences the rate of prison commitments. (3) Neither the specified nor the unspecified institutional effects mediate the effects of other exogenous variables. (4) Under most simultaneous-equation specifications, the crime rate is moderately influenced by the contemporaneous unemployment rate and strongly influenced by prior levels of prison commitments. The preferred simultaneous causal model estimates a modest positive coefficient for the unemployment-crime causal path and a substantial positive coefficient for the unemployment-prison commitment causal path.     

Interpreting “Percent Black”

Abstract

Time series analysis is employed to assess the relationship between “percent Black” and violent crime in Washington D.C. over a 40-year period. Race-disaggregated violent crime arrest data are also examined. It is concluded that while there is some indication of a positive relationship between violent crime and “percent Black” over time, that relationship is not robust when disaggregated by race and crime type and may be limited to Black robbery offending. Further, it appears that “percent Black” may be serving as a proxy for other social problems. An exploration of possible correlates of racial disparity in violent arrests suggests that they are associated with a variety of factors, including social problems and their disparities.     

Is peniaphobia an incentive to crime?

This article analysed the relationship between crime categories and unemployment rates using a set of panel data for 14 states in Malaysia with data spanning from 1982 to 2008. It is well documented that crime and unemployment are negatively related in Malaysia; the same is the case for both violent and property crime. Increases in unemployment rates cause the consumption expenditure to decrease, especially among households, hence, causing potential earnings from illegitimate activities to drop and discouraging a person from committing a crime. However, the significant properties of the t-statistics indicate that it is important to consider the labour market conditions in employing appropriate policies in fighting crime. That being said, unemployment can indirectly explain hunger, poverty, decreasing standards of life and economic downturn.     

UNEMPLOYMENT,CRIME, AND IMPRISONMENT: A PANEL APPROACH*

Despite the widespreach acceptance of the notion that during periods of economic downturn, higher levels of unemployment lead to higher levels of crime and imprisonment, the research literature reveals very little consistent support for the existence of such a relationship. Studies that do suggest unemployment causes crime and imprisonment have used methodological techniques which, especially in over-time studies, could lead to the acceptance of spurious effects caused by trend and lag as evidence of a true relationship. Using data over a six-year period for the United States, a panel model is specified in which appropriate controls for intra-series trend and cross-series lagged effects are included. Although bivariate correlations are strongly suggestive of a relationship between unemployment and crime, results of the panel approach suggest that most of the apparent relationship is due to common trend effects. Little evidence is found for the existence of a relationship between crime/imprisonment and unemployment, regardless of the type of effect considered. In addition, results from stability tests indicate that the crime-unemployment relationship has been unstable. while the unemployment-imprisonment relationship has been relatively invariant.     

Crime,Employment and Social Welfare: An Individual-Level Study on Disadvantaged Males

Objectives

We seek evidence for economic and social mechanisms that aim to explain the relationship between employment and crime. We use the distinctive features of social welfare for identification.

Methods

We consider a sample of disadvantaged males from The Netherlands who are observed between ages 18 and 32 on a monthly time scale. We simultaneously model the offending, employment and social welfare variables using a dynamic discrete choice model, where we allow for state dependence, reciprocal effects and time-varying unobserved heterogeneity.

Results

We find significant negative bi-directional structural effects between employment and property crime. Robustness checks show that only regular employment is able to significantly reduce the offending probability. Further, a significant uni-directional effect is found for the public assistance category of social welfare on property offending.

Conclusion

The results highlight the importance of economic incentives for explaining the relationship between employment and crime for disadvantaged individuals. For these individuals the crime reducing effects from the public assistance category of social welfare are statistically equivalent to those from employment, which suggests the importance of financial gains. Further, the results suggest that stigmatizing effects from offending severely reduce future employment probabilities.

     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROPERTY CRIME: A TARGET‐SPECIFIC ASSESSMENT OF OPPORTUNITY AND MOTIVATION AS MEDIATING FACTORS*

Most recent unemployment‐crime (U‐C) research is informed by the possibility that unemployment could both increase motivation for crime and decrease criminal opportunities. The mediating links of motivation and opportunity, though often assumed, have almost never been measured. We directly test for the potential mediating effects of opportunity and motivation using county‐level data for target‐specific crime rates such as convenience store robberies, motorcycle thefts, etc. We link these with data on the supply and value of corresponding crime targets (e.g., number and annual sales of convenience stores). Opportunity levels were generally unrelated to property crime rates and do not appear to mediate the U‐C relationship.     

Social integration,individual perceptions of collective efficacy,and fear of crime in three cities

Several rival explanations have been advanced to account for fear of crime among neighborhood residents. Social integration is the least developed concept in this regard. We assess the mediating role that perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy, defined as the trustworthiness of neighbors and their willingness to intervene as informal social control agents, have in the relationship between social integration and fear of crime. Our data were obtained from random sample surveys of residents conducted in three cities. Structural equation models indicate that social integration operates through perceptions of collective efficacy in predicting fear of crime, and similar results appear across three cities.     

Crime,youth gangs,and urban transition: The social dislocations of postindustrial economic development

On the basis of a multivariate analysis of quantitative data from all U.S. cities of 25,000 or more in 1970 and 1980, this paper investigates the impact of recent economic changes and population shifts on the levels of violent and property crime. Further investigation of a subset of cities yields information on the effect of these shifts for the development of youth gangs. The findings illustrate the criminogenic consequences of transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, where changes in technological conditions undermine the comparative locational advantages of cities as industrial centers and worsen economic opportunities for the unskilled urban poor. The results suggest that higher crime rates and more youth gangs are among the unintended consequences of the nation's patterns of postindustrial development.     

The economy,crime and time: An analysis of recorded property crime in England & Wales 1961–2006

We seek to determine whether one of the unanticipated side-effects of social and economic changes associated with the adoption of neoliberal and monetarist economics during the 1970s/1980s was rising crime rates. Undertaking time series analysis of social and economic determinants of property crime (using official statistics on recorded crime for England and Wales from 1961 to 2006) we develop a model of the effect of changes in socio-economic variables (unemployment, inequality, welfare spending and incarceration) on property crime rates. We find that while three of these had significant effects on change in the property crime rate, income inequality did not. We conclude with a discussion of the extent to which neoliberal economic and welfare (and later criminal justice) policies can be held to have influenced the property crime rate since the early 1980s and what this tells us about the social and economic determinants of crime at the macro-level.     

Social context of crime control: a time-series analysis of the Korean case, 1973–2002

Regardless of recent attempts to explain crime control in relation to its social structural conditions, few studies have assessed the economic, organizational, and political context of crime control simultaneously. This study integrated these three contexts into a single project to test the relevance of social structural explanations on major crime control practices over the past three decades in South Korea. By using a variety of official statistics, time-series regressions were used. The level of crime consistently explained most variation in the arrest rates for all four categories of crimes. Prosecutions also seemed to be closely responsive to the level of crime. However, the link between crime and incarceration rates was not found for all categories of crimes. This finding indicates that levels of incarceration could be determined by external factors such as the economic conditions, organizational capacity, and political climates. In addition, economic conditions, which were measured by the unemployment rate, appeared to have a strong relationship to all crime control practices; it was positively and statistically significant for arrest, prosecution and incarceration rates. Political repression was inversely related to all three practices. However, organizational capacity only seemed to affect incarceration rates. Failure or inconsistencies of some of the social contexts in explaining crime control practice in South Korea can be assessed in both methodological and substantive grounds. This underscores the need to develop more solid theoretical arguments and empirical measures for their roles in crime control.     

Drug-Related and Economic Crime Among Unauthorized Latino Immigrant and Other Arrestees in California

Abstract

This paper employs 1994-1996 California Drug Use Forecasting (CALDUF) and 1994 Los Angeles County Mexican Immigrant Residency Status Survey (LAC-MIRSS) data to estimate the level and determinants of drug-related and economic crime among unauthorized Latino immigrant and other arrestees in California. Controlling for various potential individual, contextual and geographic determinants, logistic regression results suggest the use of illicit drugs, having entered the United States more recently and residing in a home without paying any rent or mortgage positively-and residing in a home where another is dependent on an illegal substance negatively-influenced being apprehended for a drug-related crime. Although being an unauthorized Latino resident also had no effect on having been arrested for an economic crime, U.S.-born blacks and Latinos as well as non-Latino immigrants were each more likely than non-Latino U.S.-born whites to be arrested, as were younger females. Working full time and depending on another for a place to live diminished the probability. In sum, although illicit drug use augmented the probability of having been arrested for a drug-related crime, neither this nor unauthorized residency status among Latinos increased the likelihood of being arrested for an economic crime. A concluding section discusses several policy implications.     

About the authors

We have reached what may be an important turning point in the development of criminological thought and of social policy toward crime. The “conservative revolution” in criminology has lost considerable credibility, along with the entire set of minimalist strategies toward the disadvantaged that dominated social policy throughout much of the recent past. A space has opened for the development of a “social environmental” or “human-ecological” approach to crime, which combines a variety of interventions on the individual and family level with an array of broader policies aimed at controlling the social and economic forces that place individuals, families, and communities at risk in the first place.     

The maharishi effect: A model for social improvement. Time series analysis of a phase transition to reduced crime in merseyside metropolitan area

Abstract

Time series analysis was used to test the hypothesis that Merseyside crime rate was reduced by a group practising Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programme. Previous research suggests that a phase transition to increased orderliness u evidenced by reduced crime rate should occur when the group size approaches the square root of 1% of the total population. Analysis of Merseyside monthly crime data and coherence group size from 1978 to 1991 shows that a phase transition occurred during March 1988 with a 13.4% drop in crime when the group size first exceeded the √1 % or Maharishi Effect threshold (p < 0.00006). Up to 1992, Merseyside crime rate has remained steady in contrast to the national crime rate which has increased by 45%. In 1987 Merseyside had the third highest rime rate of the eleven largest Metropolitan Areas in England and Wales; by 1992 it had the lowest crime rate. 40% below levels predicted by the previous behaviour of the series. There were 255,000 less crimes in Merseyside from 1988 to 1992 than would have been expected had Merseyside continued to follow the national crime trend. Home Office figures indicate savings to Merseyside could exceed £1250 million for the five year period. Demographic changes, economic variables, police practice, and other factors could not account for the changes.     

Human but not social capital is better able to distinguish between offending trajectories in a sample of serious adolescent Hispanic offenders

PurposeBoth social and human capital have been identified as important and influential sources for success in many different life domains and research shows that investments in the two forms of capital is negatively associated with crime. Three limitations with prior research include the lack of investigation of the capital/crime relationship (1) among serious adolescent offenders, (2) in a longitudinal manner linking capital to offending over time, and (3) within Hispanic samples.MethodsThe current study uses data from the Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of serious adolescent offenders followed for seven years from mid-adolescence to early adulthood, in order to investigate the extent to which social and human capital are able to distinguish between distinct offending trajectories over seven years.ResultsHuman but not social capital is relevant for distinguishing between offending trajectories, even after controlling for other risk factors, and the combined effect of human and social capital is even more pronounced.ConclusionsThe acquisition of social but especially human capital is preventive of crime among serious adolescent Hispanic offenders.     

A tale of two counties: Unemployment and sentence severity

This study explores the relationship between the offender's employment status and sentence severity. We use data on felony offenders sentenced in 1993 in Chicago and in Kansas City to test a number of hypotheses concerning the effect of unemployment on the likelihood of incarceration and the length of the prison sentence. Our analyses reveal a complex relationship between unemployment and sentence severity: Unemployment had a direct effect on the decision to incarcerate or not only in Kansas City, and directly affected sentence length only in Chicago. In addition, unemployment interacted with other offender characteristics. The offender's employment status had no effect on either measure of sentence severity in either jurisdiction if the offender was white. In Chicago, unemployment increased the odds of incarceration for young males and for young Hispanic males, and increased the length of the sentence for males, young males, and black males. In Kansas City, unemployment had no effect on sentence length for any subgroups of the population but influenced the decision to incarcerate if the offender was a black male. We suggest that our results support the proposition that certain types of unemployed offenders are perceived as “social dynamite” (Spitzer 1975) in need of formal social control.     

Personality,socioeconomics and crime: An international comparison

Abstract

Data from 37 countries were collected that permitted exploratory analysis of national profiles in terms of personality dimensions: psychoticism (P); extraversion (E); and neuroticism (N) and four socioeconomic indices: gross domestic product (GDP); human development index (HDI); economic growth (EG); and family size (FS) and their relationship to rates of criminal activity. Findings indicated that the socioeconomic indicators did correlate with national crime patterns. High crime nations were more likely to be the richer, industrialised countries having smalles average family size. Personality variables proved more elusive. P surprisingly was not correlated with incidence of crime rather E appeared mast closely linked to rate and type of crime. Findings are discussed in terms of measurement error and possible explanatory mechanisms.     

The impact of local alcohol ordinances on official crime rates: The case of Tennessee

Past research has shown a strong link between alcohol and crime. In this study we examine the relationship between local alcohol ordinances and UCR crime rates for cities within the state of Tennessee. To assess adequately the actual relationship between crime and our alcohol availability measures, we included in the analysis a number of socioeconomic and demographic variables commonly associated with high crime rates. The results of this study suggest strongly that race, poverty, population size, and age composition provide the “best explanation” for variations in the level of criminal activity. Our findings support the hypothesis that social disorganization caused by numerous factors (especially racial and economic inequality) contribute strongly to a community's crime rate. The alcohol-related variables contribute to our understanding of the crime problem, but their impact is secondary and probably ancillary, once we have accounted for the influence of our demographic and socioeconomic variables.