From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,

From the laziness that is content with half-truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Oh, God of Truth, Deliver us.

                                        Anon.

INTRODUCTION: Contemporary theories of crime present only half-truths; Labeling theory is true enough on its own terms but it is true for priests, prostitutes, theives and Baptists alike...it cannot be a theory of crime.

Control theory is a mean-spirited half-truth which takes part of the whole process of social behavior and elevates it to a god-like view of crime.  The whole is that control is just one small part of the social process found in every form of human behavior...including crime but not especially peculiar to crime.

Differential Association is, as with labeling theory a much more encompassing explanation of far more than criminal behavior; Episcopalians associate differentially with Episcopalians; French associate more with other French people; Football players associate mostly with other football players but one could scarcely generate a theory of religion, of ethnicity or of sports from such differential association.

More that that, white collar criminals seldom associate with other white collar criminals...doctors, lawyers and professors who steal try to do it in secret from their associates...without any labelling to push secondary deviances they pursue for years on end.

And much political crime occurs well within the structures of power, authority and control which, allegedly, are missing among criminals.

The theory which informs these two Lectures on street crime is a structural theory of crime. In brief, there are economic structures together with cultural structures in American society which tend to push people into street and other kinds of crime. Economic factors include:

*Disemployment and economic insecurity

*Individualism and Materialism

*False Needs and the colonization of desire

*Racism and competition for jobs

*Age grade discrimination

*Patriarchy and gender politics

*A culture of Violence

The factors above are intimately related. Disemployment facilitates the spread of racism as people compete for scarce jobs. Individualism thrives in a society oriented to profit. A culture of violence develops and thrives in a society with false needs and high disemployment. Gender relations change under the stress of individualism and false needs. The colonization of desire by advertizing shifts love and desire to the possession of material wealth...and away from persons and groups. Personal and group associations become instruments for successful accumulation of wealth.

Out of these interacting structures come the forms of crime we find in our society. Disemployment, individualism, false needs and racism converge to produce the forms and amounts of crime we find on the streets of America.

The FBI has what it calls a crime index. The index is composed of 8 different kinds of crime. They are divided into two subgroups:

*murder and manslaughter
*burglary
*forcible rape
*larceny (theft)
*robbery
*auto (theft)
*aggravated assault
*arson

These are the kinds of crime that people in the lumpenproletariat are most likely to commit. Disemployed or under-employed, infected by the false needs spread by adverizing, angry at majority claims of superiority, the lumpen-proletariat strike back in any of a thousand ways to fit within the niches left by the great structures of class, race and gender dominations.

STREET CRIMES ARE THE MAJOR FOCUS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM; WHITE COLLAR CRIME, CORPORATE CRIME AND POLITICAL CRIME KILLS FAR MORE PEOPLE AND CONVERT FAR MORE PROPERTY IN ONE YEAR THAN ALL THE STREET THUGS IN ALL THE HISTORY OF THE USA COMBINED.

*These are crimes which directly harm and terrorize people.
*These are the crimes with which the Criminal Justice System deals.
*These are the crimes that are reported extensively in the newspapers and other news media.
*These are the visible crimes of America.

Organized crime, white collar crime, corporate crime and political crime in America are much less visible despite being much more serious in terms of people maimed and lives lost; in terms of money stolen and the economy distorted.

THE DATA OF STREET CRIME. Although the data of street crime change rapidly, there are three kinds of data you should watch for. You should have some idea about the:

In America, a rape is committed every 7 minutes. A murder is committed every 25 minutes in the U.S.A. A car is stolen every 30 seconds, someone steals something and that crime is reported on an average of once every four seconds, there is once burglary every 9 seconds...a robbery every minute. Some one is assaulted with fists, clubs, knives, or bottles every 50 seconds or so according to the Uniform Crime Reports of the F.B.I. (1982 data)

All this adds up to one crime against the person each 25 seconds on average each year and one crime against property every 3 seconds.

The U.S.A. may be the most violent society in the world. It is probably the most criminal society if corporate crime, organized crime, white collar crime and political crime is added in with the figures above.

Accuracy of the Data There is much more crime then is reported to the police. The Justice department does a random survey of people asking them whether they have been victims of crime. The answers are astounding. The real crime figures may be two or three times higher than that reported to the police. The best estimates are that only 1 rape in 10 is reported.

Crimes against women, children and the elderly are grossly under-reported since they don't report most crime committed by persons they know and upon whom they depend for their life necessities.

A study by the Bureau of Justice Statistical Office shows that street crime is increasing. Since 1945, street crime has increased by about a factor of three...do remember this figure...we are going to have to explain it.

Rates of Increase The index crime rate decreased sharply through the years between 1933 and 1943. These were years with increasing poverty but increasing federal response with social justice programs...especially make-shift work programs like the CCC and the WPA.

The crime rates were very low during the war years, 1939 to 1945. There was full employment and a lot of solidarity in those years. Since WWII, crime rates have increased dramatically. Of recent (1981-1988, there has been a significant decrease in crimes against households, but corporate crime and organized crime continue to increase along with white collar crime).

The years since WWII have been marked by the factors mentioned in Lectures 3 and 4: More individualism, more false needs, more poverty and more disemployment, a mean spirited and inadequate social justice philosophy in the land as well as much greater inequality through the 8 years of the Reagan administration.

If the trends continue as they have from 1975 to 1987, Sam Meddis says that:

*4 out of 5 twelve year olds will become victims of violent crime.

*7 out of 8 of 12 year old kids will be the victim of theft 3 or more times in their lives.

*In the next 20 years, 7 out of ten homes will be burglarized...some more than once. Hardest hit will be (1988 data estimates are in parenthesis):

--homes of Black residents (29%)

--homes of large families (35%)

--homes of the rich (27%)

--homes of city residents (30%)

*1 of 4 women will be the victim of sexual assault.

*Black people will be the more probable victim: they are twice as likely to be robbed as whites.

*Males are robbed twice as often as females.

It is a violent, criminal world in which American live and it will get worst if trends continue. (Sam Meddis, USA Today, 9 Mar., 1987).

---

While some kinds of crime reported to the police have declined recently, the overall trend in all forms of crime is upward and has been since 1945. [But note: since 1992, property crime has been decreasing...this is in the context of the growing hegemony of the USA in a globalized economy.  Interest rates are low as more people turn to mutual funds; capital flows to the USA from 3rd world countries where investment is risky or from the oil countries where investment possibilities are few: June, 1999].

Crimes against children are up 55% in the past five years. Sexual abuse is the major form of violence against children, up 176% according to a 1988 House Select Committee Report on Children, Youth and Families.

And trends will continue unless Americans have better theory and better policies than they have had to date.

There are low crime societies. Good theory requires comparative data of crime together with comparative analysis of the structural differences between high crime and low crime societies.

The second set of data necessary for students of criminology to use in building theory and policy provides cross-cultural data.

Between Nations and Blocs There are three sets of interesting comparisons to be made in generating theory and policy. The interesting comparisons include:

1. Comparisons of the U.S.A. with other industrial, democratic, and capitalist states. There are about 20 developed capitalist societies in the world capitalist system. It is called the first world.

2. Comparisons between the 20 rich capitalist countries and the 120 poor capitalist countries. The poor countries are called the third world.

3. Comparisons between the 140 capitalist nations and the 20 or so socialist bloc countries. The Socialist bloc is called the second world.

CRIME IN THE 1st WORLD: There are about 20 countries which make up the 1st world. The West European countries, Canada, the USA, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, the Union of South Africa and Israel have well developed industrial capacity, a highly developed infrastructure for travel, communications, education, housing and energy. The 1st world has the most wealth, best programs of social justice and the highest per capita income. It also has the most democratic political forms and the most creative citizenry of all the countries in the world.

Within the 1st world, the U.S.A. is, arguably, the most crime prone society. If one adds up all the corporate crime, all the organized crime, all the street crime, all the white collar crime, and all the political crime of the U.S. government at home and abroad, one might well find that America leads the world in crime.

*Americans are 7 to 10 times as risk from violent death than most European countries.

*American women are 7 times more likely to be raped than are women in Europe.

*Americans are 4 to 10 times at risk from robbery as European countries.

*The USA puts 2 times as many people in prison as do European countries. The incarceration rate has doubled since 1973.

Crime rates in Canada are close behind those of the USA. While social justice programs are a bit better in Canada than in the USA, still false needs, individualism, disemployment, and the culture of violence is shared. The country with the lowest crime rate in the 1st world is New Zealand: it has good solid social justice programs which enable people to live in dignity.

All of the European states with strong labor movements are oriented to social justice policies in housing, health care, education, job security and retraining, as well as retirement benefits. Sweden, Denmark, England, Italy, France, Germany and Norway among other rich capitalist countries have elected social democratic governments. Finland has had a communist government for years. They have much lower crime rates than the USA and much better social justice programs.

CRIME IN THE 3RD WORLD There are about 120 countries which make up the 3rd world. Most are former colonies of European countries. They often depend upon a few export crops as well as export of raw materials for most of their international exchange. They often have repressive governments; unstable economies, and great inequality. There are few effective programs of social justice for the poor and the dispossessed.

Comparisons of the 20 rich capitalist countries and the 120 capitalist and semi-capitalist countries in the third world of development show that crime rates are higher in the 3rd world than in the other two worlds of economic development. In some 3rd world countries, interpersonal violent crime is low but street crime tends to be high.

In those countries, per capita income varies from $85 per year in Haiti to $600 per year in Brazil. People are forced from the land; are without decent housing or health care; are robbed of decent wages and robbed by high prices. In those societies where parents sell their land; daughters sometimes turn to prostitution; sons may turn to petty theft; politicians may take bribes.

In the dry, dusty language of social science, these people are the marginal people. They were marginalized by the great crimes of colonialism; by the great crimes of political despotism and by the greater crimes of economic imperialism.

Again, one should remember that it is not poverty which causes crime...it is poverty without community; poverty in the midst of affluence and false needs; poverty with real life crises and no community resource to which to turn for help.

Muslim Countries An important exception to high crime rates in the 3rd world are the Muslim countries. There, crimes rates are as low as are to be found any where.

Three factors account for these low rates:

**First is the commitment to social justice for the poor and the widowed found in the teachings of Allah. One is to give one fortieth of one's wealth to the poor every year. One is to forgive debts every seventh year. One cannot charge interest on money lent.

**Everyday, in the muslim world, the vast majority of men prostrate themselves four or five times a day and pray that they will do good for the glory of their god. Nothing comparable to that happens in the USA.

**And then there is the strict and sure punishment for crime. Dismemberment and death are prescribed for the thief and for the murderer in muslim societies.

---

In a very real sense, the social justice in the 1st world: the schools, the health care plans, the decent housing programs, the many community resources would not have been possible but for the one sided trade policies of colonialism and of the Multinational corporations which repatriate profits to the banks and stockholders in England, France, Switzerland, Sweden and to the USA.

In the rich capitalist countries social justice is paid for by the political and economic injustice in the 3rd world.

In these times, the USA is the leading supplier of arms and advice for the continuation of this unequal trade...and the inequality between the 1st and 3rd world is increasing. The 3rd world owes over $1.3 trillion dollars to the banks in the 1st world. For some countries that is more than the export of food or goods brings in. Inequality between the rich and the poor countries of the capitalism world system is increasing; one can expect crime rates in the 3rd world to increase in such conditions.

STREET CRIME IN THE SOCIALIST WORLD: The 3rd world is composed of the East European nations, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Vietnam, and North Korea. Several African states label themselves socialist as does North Yemen, and Cambodia.

In the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Cuba, China as well as in other socialist nations, the streets are safe, organized crime virtually nonexistent and corporate crime is much lower. Only white collar crime in the socialist bloc compares to white collar crime in the capitalist bloc.

*There has been a lot of teenage delinquency call hooliganism criminologists in the USSR and eastern Europe. Young people who mug, fight, vandalize, steal, and refuse to work continue to be a problem in street crime.

*In most socialist countries, one can find lots of street people engaged in illegal currency dealings. There continues to be some prostitution in the USSR although it is greatly reduced from Czarist times.

*Drug use is actively repressed and harshly punished in most socialist countries. There is some evidence that socialist officials in some countries permit drugs to be shipped to Europe and America for a share in the profits. Cuba, China, Nicaragua and Bulgaria have been so accused by the USA.

Recently, crime rates in both the USSR and in China have increased. The Detroit News (1/27/89) reports a surge in street crime. Crime in all categories rose 45% in China in 1988. Serious crime jumped 66% (but remember, the crime rates were very low). Theft accounted for 80% of reported crimes according to the official China Daily newspaper.

Soviet crime rose nearly 17% last year according to a report in Pravda, the official soviet newspaper. Robberies, assaults, and theft increased by more than 33%, while such street crimes as money changing, prostitution and mugging leaped by 48%.

Economic and social reforms account for this recent and atypical increase in crime. Both China and the USSR are using market dynamics to cut costs and increase efficiency. Disemployment has increased greatly in both societies. Inflation in China has increased by 32% according to official sources but observers say it is much higher. [Again Note: this section was written before the collapse of the Socialist Bloc in East Europe...crime rates have exploded since capitalism came upon the scene].

CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES The United States is saturated with crime. The forms and amounts of crime increase as does the call for more police and more prisons. More and more of the nation's resources are allocated to support the many systems of social control. There is a systematic distortion in the investment of capital...from the essentials of social life to the life style of those who benefit from corporate, white collar, organized, and street crime.

The promises of democracy, equality of opportunity, justice for all, equal protection under the law as well as domestic tranquility; all these Constitutional promises fail in the face of crime.

ECONOMIC COSTS OF STREET CRIME. There are many visible and hidden costs of crime. There are many short term costs easily converted into numbers and dollars. There are long term costs of crime which are hidden in the vast transformations through which the world is going. We will confine the discussion here to the dollar cost and the cost in human life.

Let us start with cost estimates in the city, county, state, national and international budgets.

Cities U.S. cities spent a total of $140 billion to control crime in fiscal year 1986 according to the Census Bureau.

**Police costs were the largest single item of city budgets at 12% of the total or $16.8 billion.

**Corrections also cost money. Cities spent almost a billion dollars more in 1986 to run their courts and jails.

County Costs Counties are spending scarce funds for building bigger and better jails. County jails around the country are overflowing.

**$4.5 billion for police, prosecutors and judges.

**$3 billions for county jails and courts in 1986.

State Expenditures In FY 1988-89, the various states will spend $261 billions in general funds (City and State magazine). The states total for crime control was about $19.2 billions. Expenditures to fund criminal justice programs cost millions more but are not included in the most cost analyses.

**$15.7 billions will be spent on the courts and prisons of the states...6% of the total.

**States spent $3.5 billions more for the various state police systems in 1986.

The crisis in the costs of policing and prisons is so great that many states are turning to private contractors to take the prisoners. And many are turning to electronics to keep prisoners at home who would otherwise be in prison.

Federal Expenses The Federal Government has about 30 police forces, including the FBI, the IRS, the US Marshals and some 21 secret police agencies. No one knows how much is really spent...not even the Congress.

Officially, the federal government spent about $3.5 billions in 1986 for police and about $750 millions for corrections. In the dark and murky operations of the federal government such figures become sheer invention.

THE GRAND TOTAL You can add these up for the grand total:

Cities = $17.8 billions

Counties = 7.5

States = 19.2

Federal = 4.2

______

Total expenditures

to control Street Crime 48.7 billions

Besides the dollars lost to criminals themselves, the governments in the USA take about $200 per person to control crime. Both crime and the costs of crime increase each year faster than the growth in population. Crime costs have increased about 10% per year since 1981.

COMPARATIVE ESTIMATES OF CRIME COSTS *

Kind of Crime Lives Lost Dollar Loss

each year each year

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Corporate Crime 300,000 200 Billion

Street Crime 25,000 9 Billion

Organized Crime 5,000 150 Billion

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POLICING STREET CRIME Street crime is the most thoroughly policed form of crime in the United States. There are about 800,000 uniformed police in the USA together with 1,100,000 private security police.

The ten most heavily policed crimes in the USA in 1988 as measured by arrests are:

*Driving under the influence = 2,000,000

*Drug related offenses = 1,800,000

*Larceny (theft) = 1,430,000

*Drunkenness = 1,320,000

*Disorderly Conduct = 720,000

*Other assaults = 580,000

*Liquor law violations = 555,000

*Burglary = 480,000

*aggravated assault = 340,000

*Fraud = 300,000

Alcohol related violations together take up most of the time and effort of police and the courts.

You will note only there are two major kinds of street crime against property in the top ten: larceny and burglary and just one kind of white collar: fraud. Corporate crime simply is not registered in the consciousness or in the reports of the police.

The Data of American Prisons As you know, the USA has more people in prison per 100K than all other countries except the USSR and the Union of South Africa. That says nothing good for our policies of social control.

Jesse Jackson points out that it costs more to keep a young man in prison than to send him to college. It varies with the state but most states spend about $25,000 per prisoner.

Police and prisons don't work.

*the number of people in prisons has increased by 1/3 in the past 8 years

*the number of people on probation has increased by over 1/3 in the past 5 years

*the average probation officer must keep track of 200 exprisoners each month. They spent about 10 minutes.

*the amount spent on running prisons tripled in the past 10 years

*prisons are 125% of capacity in 1988

*new prisons are being built at a record pace

In with all this criminal justice:

*crime rates continue to climb

*63% of those released are rearrested within 2 years.

*1 man out of 25 is under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system in 1987.

: In advanced capitalism, there are three important economic factors which tend to promote street crime. We will explore their connection to crime here.

*disemployment

*false needs

Of the three, disemployment is the most important.

Disemployment is a result of the dynamics of capitalism. Capitalism is the only mode of production which tends to eliminate workers from productive labor. The push for profits requires that the capitalist firm lower costs and increase prices as much as possible. The effort to lower wages tends to disemploy people who are able and willing to work.

The effort to increase prices results in corporate crime as you shall see later.

There are several ways a capitalist firm can lower labor costs. All of them restrict the income of the working class as a whole at the same time that capitalist firms spends billions to generate false needs. (See below).

The combination of false needs and disemployment is a major source of street crime. False needs also figure into the commission of white collar, corporate and organized crime.

Disemploying People Let us consider the ways to reduce labor costs first. Bear in mind that this is a structural crime. Even if you were the best employer in the world, you would have to try to disemploy workers in order to maintain profits and meet the competition. It is the system not the people which is a basic source of street crime.

If you are a capitalist, you would try to lower labor costs by adopting some of the following tactics:

1. Replace workers with machines. Automation tends to increase production (which must be sold) with fewer and fewer workers who, as a class, are paid less per unit of wealth.

2. Speed up production lines. This gets more wealth produced with the same amount of workers but it tends to stress the workers.

3. Use part-time workers. This saves on fringe benefits such as pensions, vacation pay, overtime and health care or child care but it reduces the economic security and the job security of workers as a class.

4. Import cheaper labor from countries with very little social justice. They will be glad of the chance to work but home workers will be disemployed.

5. Move the factory to a country with cheap labor and weak labor laws, weak pollution laws, few consumer protection laws and low taxes. This reduces costs for the capitalist but increase costs for workers, consumers and those whose health is harmed by pollution.

All these practices are used in some combination or another to lower wages in America. Today the American economic machine creates a lot of jobs but most new jobs are low paying jobs as American capitalist continue to use the devices above.

About 20 million new jobs have been created since 1973 but, according to a 1987 report by Barry Bluestone (Boston College) and Bennett Harrison (M.I.T.)., 44% of them paid less than $7,400 while only 10% of them paid more than $30,000 (Gannett News Service, 29 Mar., 1987).

Disemployment Figures. The official rate of disemployment in 1987 was 7.8%. These figures come from the department of labor. Other studies put the real rate at closer to 18% or some 20 million jobless workers.

The department of labor statistics do not consider those who have given up on seeking employment (some 6 million) or those who no longer are eligible to draw unemployment compensation (only about 40% of the unemployed are eligible for such insurance).

The government has a built-in motive for making the figures appear lower than they are. The elected officials would lose legitimacy if the real figures were widely known. The Reagan administration included some 3 million military personnel in employment figures in order to make the disemployment rates of civilians look smaller.

It is no coincidence that the rate of street crime is highest among young Black Males and young Hispanic males. It is these groups which have the highest disemployment rates. They are the first section of the population discarded by advanced monopoly capitalism as it automates, disinvests, and transfers its operations overseas. Racism tends to protect Whites from disemployment.

Underemployment. The underemployed include those who work part-time and who want full time jobs as well as those who have a college degree but are driving buses, taxis, waiting on tables or in construction.

The sources of underemployment are twofold:

1. Capitalists tend to prefer part-time workers since they are not eligible for health care, vacation pay, retirement benefits, and other costly items which workers' struggles have won over the past 50 years.

2. The capacity of the economy to provide jobs for those with higher job qualifications depends upon economic growth. You have seen that capitalism tends to cycles of boom and bust. Many workers work part-time each day; many work only part of the year; many more find work during the upswing of a mini-cycle and are laid off two or three years later.

About 20% of the 114,000,000 workers in the USA are underemployed. That makes about 23 million who are looking for jobs with more challenge, better wages and benefits as well as more central to their lives.

Add this to the 18 million above and you find close to 40 million people for whom their jobs are inadequate to their needs for income and/or for self realization. This 40 million provides a population base for street crime as they try to reunite production and distribution.

Reuniting Production and Distribution. Capitalism is the only mode of production in history which separates production and distribution. You can either own the means of production or you can sell your labor power. The factor which determines both is profit. If the owner can make a profit, s/he can stay in business.

There are four parallel systems of distribution available to most people who are unable to own the means of production or unable to sell labor power. they are:

1.The Kinship system. It is organized as a communist mode in that distribution is based upon status and is determined by need rather than profit.

2. State Welfare. State welfare is organized along corporatist principles. The state taxes private ownership and distributes on the basis of status. In the U.S., welfare grants are set below minimum wage levels in order to force people to sell their labor power.

3. Private charity. Many churches and fraternal organizations help the poor and the destitute. Distribution is based upon proof of need.

4. crime. Street crime is a system of redistribution of wealth based upon force and/or deception.

Without these non-capitalist systems of redistribution, capitalism would not work. There is a fifth economic system upon which capitalism can parasitize.

Disemployment and Crime As you saw in Lecture 5, the data show a consistent and causal connection between disemployment and property crime when it occurs in competitive, individualistic societies.

Steven Box, Kent University, England, reviewed the findings of studies between crime and disemployment in the U.S.A. and England going back to 1950. Of the 18 time-series studies; 13 reported that crime increases when disemployment increases. Five of the studies reported no relationship. But these studies used aggregate data...which is not very good stuff.

A much better method is to use longitudinal studies to see if people committed more crime after while disemployed than when employed. Thornberry and Christenson, University of Georgia, studied a sample of 1000 from 9,945 participants in the famous Philadelphia cohort of men born in 1945. They reported that joblessness had an instantaneous effect on crime...even for middle class boys (Box: 1987: 93).

The data show a weak connection between disemployment and violent crimes against the person. That relationship, however, grows as time passes during a depression...murder and manslaughter rates increase in both high crime societies and in low crime societies when depressions continue over years.

Disemployment and Prison James Inverity and L.M. Tedrow of Western Washington University has studied the relationship between disemployment and imprisonment rates in a time series analysis. Their findings show a consistent relationship between crime, disemployment and prison.

Steven Box (1987:85) reports the same connection in Britain:

Table 13-1

Correlations Between Disemployment Rates and serious Crime

Recorded by Police, England and Wales, 1982-1983

OFFENSE CORRELATION

Burglary .572**

Assault .529**

Theft .423**

Robbery .342*

Fraud and forgery .338*

Sexual offenses .158

** = p < 0.01 * - p < 0.05

In England as in the USA, there is plenty of money for prisons as recessions work to promote crime. Box reports (110 et passim) that, during the last recession in England:

** the police force increased 30%

** quasi-military tactics and technology were adopted

** discretionary powers to search, seize, and hold expanded.

** Courts increased personnel

** Sentencing powers expanded; became harsher

** New prisons were constructed

Judges realize that, in good times, there are productive alternatives to prison for offenders. They are told that if they get a job and behave themselves, they won't have to spend time in jail.

When times are bad, people are unemployed, then there are only three places the judge can send them...to jail, to the military or back on the street.

FALSE NEEDS At the same time that the dynamics of capitalism tend to disemploy and to underemploy workers, those same dynamics tend to create false needs. Every person has authentic needs for those resources which enable the human individual to participate in uniquely human cultural activity.

Capitalism, as the most productive system in human history creates a surplus which is surplus because workers as a class cannot buy back 100% of what they produce because they don't get 100% of the value of what they produce. With all their wealth, the capitalist class can't consume all the housing, all the autos, all the refrigerators, all the barrels of beer, all the napkins, all the shoes or all of the millions of other goods produced in abundance.

Renewing Demand For the capitalist class, there are several ways they can use to generate demand and thus reduce the surplus...and several ways over which they have little control.

1. Pay workers more (but profits drop)

2. Cut prices (but profits drop)

3.Sell to foreign markets (but foreign capitalists can't survive and foreign workers complain).

4.Destroy the surplus. (No profit at all but farmers have been know to do just that).

5.Have a depression. (stop producing until goods wear out demand picks up again. This happens a lot).

6. Have a war. (this destroys a lot of goods and renews demand).

7. Sell surplus to the State. (The state can give it away) but this increases taxes and reduces income to buy goods.

8. Build-in obsolescence. (design things to wear out fast)

9. Create false needs and Fashion. (Convince people that the good life and your personal worth depends upon having more of what they produce. Convince people to throw away perfectly good clothes, cars, refrigerators or toys)

10.Credit. Persuade people to use credit cards and spend more. (this transfers the crisis of 'overproduction' to the future).

11.Crime. Crime renews demand when middle class people loss goods in theft, burglary, or robbery.

But of all of the above, the ones with the fewest harmful side effects are obsolescence, false needs, credit and state welfare redistribution. The first three tend to motivate those without discretionary income to turn to other systems of redistribution in order to get the resources to satisfy false needs.

Individualism Raymond Williams is Fellow of Jesus College at Cambridge University. He is interested in transformations of words in the process of mystification and ideological hegemony in both capitalist and bureaucratic socialist systems. He has traced the transformations of the concept of individualism in his book, Keywords.

Williams notes that individual originally meant someone who was part of a larger whole...and the whole, indivisible. In the 6th century, Boethius used the word thus when he spoke of 'the glorie of the hye and indyvyduall trynte.' Williams points out that the meaning changed with the work of John Locke, a very important capitalist philosopher when he spoke of '...our idea of any individual man.'

In classical economics, separate individuals entered economic life when each traded with another. In utilitarian economics, separate individuals calculated the advantages of any economic activity they undertook. The concept of the individual had to be stood on its head in order for capitalism to have a philosophic basis.

Marx, as a social philosopher, attacked the opposition of individual and society. He argued that the individual is a social creation, born into social relationship and, for the most part, determined by social relationships. Mead, Cooley, Thomas and the other founders of American social psychology took the same position as Marx...the concept of the solitary person is unknown in reality.

All forms of crime become easier when one has no human connection to one's victim...or so believes by virtue of the thousands of hours heard praising individualism at school, work, church, and in politics. The philosophy of the single individual destroys social relationships and creates the nonperson: one without status relationship to individual others.

At the same time, it is easier to control people in the school, factory, voting booth, prison or welfare office when they come before authority one at a time. The political advantage of the individual against the bureaucracy is a major source of mass society.

Materialism Materialism is central to capitalism and often transforms into economic sources of crime. But materialism is part of a social philosophy found in bureaucratic socialism as well as in capitalism. It is part of the Feudal experience as well as the slave system. You must consider the contribution it makes to street crime as in other forms of crime for a complete understanding of how to make and how to end crime.

Epicurus and the Greek atomists developed materialism as a scientific understanding in the 5th century, B.C. For the next 23 centuries, the religious understanding of matter prevailed...that matter is the embodiment of the Spirit of God. The idea languished until it became useful to capitalism as a way to dispense with moral concerns and concentrate upon control of the natural world.

Modern science insisted that only matter existed and that spiritual aspects of life were irrelevant to scientific understanding of nature; including the behavior of humans.

Among the most important Christian spiritual values essential to a low crime society are:

*Compassion rather than control

*Caritas rather than judging *mercy rather than impersonal justice

*Belief and faith rather than cynicism

*trust and honor rather than opportunism

*hope rather than despair and quietism

*generosity rather than inflexibility

*acceptance rather than impersonality

Many religious traditions have similar philosophies of life which speak against the artificial duality of matter and spirit in human endeavor; against individualism and other orientations which facilitate crime. Most Buddhist and Muslim peoples live in low crime societies.

Spiritual values need a social context in which they grow well. They do not do well in elitist societies, mass depersonalized societies, or in racist or sexist societies. They do not thrive in a culture of violence...let us take a look at how capitalism uses violence to generate demand for the unsold goods that accumulate in shops and stores.

NON-ECONOMIC SOURCES OF STREET CRIME It is easy to overemphasize the economic sources of crime. However, they do not work alone to produce the extraordinary crime rates found in the USA. You should consider several other sources of street crime which predate capitalism by many centuries. Among these are:

--Patriarchy

--Machismo

--Ethnic divisions

--a culture of violence

Crime does not begin with genes, blood chemistry, body type, physiological defects or psychological imperatives. Crime comes out of the ordinary workings of the society in which you live.

Patriarchy Patriarchy is a system of family organization in which females are kept subordinate to men. It is a system of semi-slavery in which women produce food and other resources with which to support males while they engage in war, religion, games or other solidarity activity.

Patriarchy leads to much crime against women as men use force to keep gender stratification intact in times of social and economic change. See the Lecture on Crimes against Women.

Machismo The cult of the super male who dominates all other males by violence and intimidation is an integral part of Hispanic and other cultures. Advertisers pick up on it and use it to sell automobiles, alcohol, and other products used by 'real' men.

Machismo came out of the predatory economics of tribal life in which males were expected to defend their families from all others. Access to water, game, pasture, and other resources lead some cultures to push young men into violent competition with each other.

Today machismo informs a lot of gang violence in the streets and in prison. It informs violence against women outside the family. It informs violence against ethnic groups for jobs and space in the crowded city.

Machismo is used by the capitalist corporation to increase demand. Ads promise those who buy cars or beer or guns or perfumes or clothes that they will be more masculine if they do.

Ethnic Divisions Just as individualism makes it easier for one to mug, rob, rape, or murder another person who has something one wants or stands in one's way, ethnic divisions do the same thing.

In social anthropological terms, the ethnocentricism of one tribe or socio-cultural group defines whole groups as nonpersons. There are no obligations to support, affirm, cherish or share with nonpersons...any more than one would share or respect an animal.

Nonpersons can be robbed, raped, murdered, enslaved, or exploited without compassion...even by those who are well socialized and conscientiously moral in dealings with members of one's own ethnic group.

The Cult of Violence The USA adopted approval of violence out of the predatory economics of feudalism and colonialism it inherited from Britain, northern Europe and other points of origin.

The cult of violence was reinforced by the many wars of liberation, capitalist competition, and neo-colonialism the US has fought since 1775. Violence was approved by press and politicians alike as the surplus population in Eastern states moved West to take land from Native Americans. The violent dispossession of some 95 Indian tribes from their homelands was celebrated in news reports, patriotic holidays, books and later movies.

The cult of violence grew as workers and farmers used it against the owners of factories and the bankers who squeezed them. It grew as the state used violence to break strikes and to curb street crime.

Today, every boy and many young women learn violence at an early age at home, in school, in the media and in advertisements. Christmas and birthdays celebrate male violence in toys and games.

Gary Kleck of Florida State University has estimated that guns were used in self defense about 1 million times in 1980!! Between 8,000 and 16,000 would-be burglars, robbers, and rapists were wounded by their intended victim. Kleck calculates that there were some 1,500 to 2,800 felons legally killed by citizens (1988: 1)

Opponents to the private use of force argue that both felons and police in England manage to do without guns. The private use of guns for defense is rare as well...although there is some pressure on the police to permit more handguns.

As you learned in Lecture 5, the cult of violence informs much violent crime in the streets. Countries which use warfare to solve economic problems have much higher crime rates than non-combatant countries.

TELEVISION AND VIOLENCE In order to make profits, television networks must generate an audience. That audience is measured by advanced electronic devices. The programs with the highest ratings are then sold to advertisers. All this helps the capitalist class dispose of surplus (i.e., unsold) production.

Networks, ad agencies and large corporations have learned that violence builds audiences. The more T.V. viewers, the higher the ratings, the higher the price of a 30 second spot. A 30 second ad on networks can now cost more than 30 professors make in a year.

Sex and violence in T.V. programs guarantee young men and women will watch the ads. Some of them will buy cars, beverages, body lotions or electronics they have learned to want...thus T.V. helps to colonize desire and to steer it toward possession of things rather than concern and help for people.

The National Coalition on Television Violence monitors and reports the number of violent acts per hour on each network. Here are the results for Jan-Mar, 1988:

--Crime Story (NBC) = 34 violent acts per hour

--Miami Vice (NBC) = 31

--Sonny Spoon (NBC) = 30

--Spenser: (ABC) = 28

--Hunter (NBC) = 23

THE SOCIAL CORRELATES OF CRIME In support of a structural theory of crime, you will find crime varies dramatically with position in race, gender, or class structure. It is not race which produces crime but racism; it is not the genes of poor people which product crime but poverty without community; it is not the gender of men which leads them to commit far more crime than women but rather patriarchy and machismo.

Age Most street crime is committed by young people. in 1984, people under age 25 committed about 50.5 % of the crimes brought to a formal charge. There were a total of 8,921,000 such crimes of which young people were accused of 4,507,344.

Most street crime is committed by people under age 25 and it is that age group which is most often the victim of crime.

Bureau of Justice data from 1987 show:

*young people are ten times more likely to be victims of violent crime than those over 65.

*young people are 3 times more likely to be victims of mugging than those over 65.

*young people are 3 1/2 times as likely to be victims of burglary than those over 65.

Of the index crimes, young people (18-25 years old) were charged with:

*41.3% of the murders

*46.8% of forcible rapes

*66.9% of robberies

*44.7% of aggravated assaults

*74.3% of burglaries

*62.1% of larceny thefts, ($50.00 +)

*72.0% of auto theft and

*64.0% of the arsons committed

Street crime rates drop sharply after people reach age 25. This drop appears to point to age as a key variable. But as young men get married, get jobs, have kids, join churches and community sports teams, and find themselves in social locations which promote prosocial behavior crime rates drop. It is the solidarity of prosocial activities which account for most of the drop in crime rates, rather than age as such.

Again, corporate crime, political crime and white collar crime figures are not included. These kinds of crime are committed by older males. One cannot use age as part of a theory of crime unless one ignores the vast amount of white collar crime, corporate crime, political crime and organized crime...all engineered by older males; all bringing fame and fortune to older males.

Although young people commit arson far in excess of their numbers in the population, when you understand the economics of arson, you understand that it is 50 year old landlords who commission the burning of buildings. You find that it is 55 year old bankers who profit from the proceeds of arson. You learn that 60 year old insurance brokers get bigger commissions for writing high risk policies since profits are greater to the company.

But it is the young people who set the fires and go to jail if caught. The same is true of auto theft, of burglary and robbery and the forms of organized crime in which young people are recruited. The young take the risk and the older take the profits.

Youth Gangs Young people join gangs for the same reason that older men join the Kiwanis or the Elks...for identity, affirmation, solidarity, and organized group activities.

The better question is why do some groups of young people engage in antisocial group activities rather than prosocial activity.

Young people are discarded from prosocial labor as surplus to the profit quest of private business. It is hard to make a profit off the labor of children in a high tech society. In a low tech society, the labor of children is valuable. Beginning at age three, fuel, water, and food can be collected by tiny hands; goats and cattle can be watched by 7 year olds; 10 year olds can provide domestic service.

Tony Platt, editor of the journal, Crime and Social Justice, has recorded the history of the warfare for jobs between children and adults. The scarcity of good paying jobs creates competition between children and adults for jobs. With the passage of child labor laws, adult men succeeded in eliminating children as competitors in a shrinking job market. They saved the children from exploitation but left them to roam the streets...or to sit passively in 'warehouse' schools.

In the present economic situation, young people can baby-sit, can serve fast food, can do yard work, and can deliver papers. There are many factory jobs, good paying transport jobs, construction jobs, and nursing jobs young people could do but are prevented by the law.

At the same time, children are bombarded with ads which encourage them to want; to buy and to have. With such false needs and without their own income, children to turn to the parallel economic structures for funds. Parents provide most of the pocket money young people have. Some 50% work part time at minimum wage or below. Children in the underclass depend upon welfare. Some young people turn to street crime for funds.

Property crimes Here are the more common crimes against property committed by young people:

*Larceny theft

About half of all economic crimes for which young people are arrested simple theft. Shoplifting is a big ticket item for young people. That is why they are watched so closely by store clerks and managers.

*Burglary

In about 10% of the arrests of children under 18, the charge was entering someone else's house and taking things.

*Motor vehicle theft

Middle class young people steal cars for joy rides. In many American cities, children in the underclass can pick up $100 to $1000 for stealing a fairly new car. Organized crime buys the stolen cars, removes the valuable parts for resale or hires someone to drive the car to another state.

 

*Dealing in drugs

Dealing in drugs can pay $200 a day for diligent young people in the city. High school and group recreational activities provide a natural market. Denied the economic opportunities of the adult world, young people create their own.

*Mugging, purse snatching and jewelry rips

Mugging is the modern version of the predatory economics for which young men in other times were made heros.

*Receiving stolen property

Young people share out the goods they steal with others in their solidarity. Sometimes, a potential business man will buy and retail stolen goods...or wholesale it to legitimate merchants.

*Fraud and hustles

On rare occasions, young people will sell people things they won't deliver or use one of a thousand cons learned on the street. Selling sex and then refusing to deliver after being paid is one common tactic. The customer can't very well complain to any policing authority.

*Vandalism

Vandalism is about as frequent as assault. In vandalism, young men get together to use physical violence upon the property.

Trashing, graffiti, arson, wrecking, or otherwise defacing the property of a group defined as an enemy is common.

Vandalism of school property signifies the unspoken anger of young people against their oppression or alienation in school. The rules are made to make life easier for administrators, the educational process is designed to make things easier for the teacher, and the courses are designed to serve the labor needs of advanced monopoly capital.

Given the alienation of the school, and the control of decision making processes by remote and unsympathetic, cost cutting middle class Boards of Education, such vandalism is a natural physical consequence.

Status crimes There are several status crimes for which young people are arrested, tried, sentenced and imprisoned by the various youth authorities of the criminal justice system.

A status crime involves an activity which is illegal for those without adult social status. When one has social standing as an adult, the same activity is not a crime.

*Curfew and loitering

Young people are expected to be home by ten or eleven in the night. Streets used to be community space in most of history. In capitalist times, streets are market space.

When the day markets are closed, the night markets open. Until recently, these night markets were for sex, gambling, drinking and other adult solidarity activities closed off to young people.

*Runaways

Children are the legal wards of their parents until of an age specified by law. When they go somewhere without the permission of their parents, they are, in terms of technical rationality, runaways. They are running away from the social status of subordinate family member.

Running away is the second most frequent status crime for which young people are charged.

*Liquor laws

Young people learn at an early age that alcohol is the sacred supply of choice for solidarity in American society.

In most societies, there is a clear and honored ceremony in which children are declared to have adult status. Young men go through such ceremonies about age 14. In Latin American culture, young women celebrate their 15th birthday in a special evening ceremony.

In a mass society, status and status ceremonies are weak, ambiguous and scattered: driving, drinking, dropping out of school, getting a job, sexual activity.

CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON Finally, there is a category of offenses for which young people are arrested which involve pretheoretical violence.

*Felony assault and simple assault

Young males have little in the way of social power, moral power, or economic power. Young men always have access to physical power. It is inalienable unless one is chained, jacketed, or tranquilized.

On occasion, young men use physical power against other young men in tests of status, strength and domination. This is defined as simple assault. Young men beat up each other. If they use guns or knives, clubs or chains, it is called felony assault.

In societies which teach competition, domination, territoriality and male sexual privilege, young men use physical power to achieve these in their underground structures.

In the USA, homicide is the leading cause of death of minority group males, aged 15-20. The homicide rate is increasing in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago.

Crime on the Campus There are several kinds of crime on the college campus school which interfere with the learning process. They are:

*assault

*mugging and shakedowns

*vandalism

*theft

*substance abuse

*riots

*date rape

Dorothy Siegel, of Towson State University, reports on a study which found:

*88% of students surveyed knew of a sexual assault

*35% report being physically frightened

*about 80% of campus crime is committed by students

USA Today estimates that each year there are about 500,000 thefts on campus and perhaps 20,000 violent crimes such as rape, robbery, beatings, and occasionally, murder. There are 2,500 violent campus crimes reported to the F.B.I.

*The most dangerous campus in the USA is the University of California at Berkeley where there were 29 robberies and 35 aggravated assaults in 1986. Of the rapes, only 12 were reported but that means many more unreported rapes took place that year.

*At Lehigh University, 10 violent crimes were committed in 1986 including the murder of Jeanne Clery.

*Michael Gray, criminologist at Maryland, reports that more than one of four college women surveyed there are victims of rape or attempted rape.

Campus Riots. Every April, Colorado State University has what is called College days. Chico State has what is called Pioneer Days. A wide variety of universities set aside two days in the Springtime for orgiastic rites which emerged out of ancient Easter rites of change and renewal.

Delight at the end of Winter and joy in the advent of Spring together with a more plentiful supply of food informed the first expressions of these timeless celebrations. Now there is a different logic with which to understand these festivities.

The Spring Break is now a break from the alienated education of mass, impersonal diploma factories which dominate higher education in America.

On Saturday night, 1987, 3500 students at Colorado State University participated in a melee in which 50 were injured and 50 others arrested. Students threw beer bottles at each other and at the police, chanted "cops eat shit," physically resisted police and tore down fences for bonfire fuel.

In Port Arkansas, Texas, some 3000 students rioted during Spring Break, 1988. They were angered when a driver hit a coed. They stopped the driver, destroyed the car and went on a rampage in the streets. Here you can see physical power joined with moral power to punish the driver. The use of physical power then continued stripped of its moral dimension.

Youth Crime and Policy Socialist Humanists tend to attribute the crime of young people to the social conditions into which they are put by the cultural and economic structures of society. If crime among young people is to be reduced, those structures must be changed.

Prosocial labor, moral education, cooperative relations and adequate resources are preferable to the radical theorist than joblessness, technical education, competitive struggle and false needs...with concomitant street crime, police, youth detention and probation.

There are 55 million people under age 18 in the USA. About 15 million are age 14-18. In 1988, 750,000 will find federally funded summer jobs. Private companies will hire 2.4 million more. That leaves about 12 million. Most will play a lot, party a bit, and travel somewhere. Some will deal in drugs for $400 a day. Some will prostitute their bodies. Some will turn to petty theft and most will not be caught.

GENDER Men commit far more street crime than do women. Males commit about 90% of the violent crimes which result in indictments. They are responsible for about 77% of the property crimes charged in 1984.

Of the index crimes, males were charged with:

*86.7% of the murders

*99.1% of forcible rapes

*92.8% of robberies

*86.6% of aggravated assaults

*92.6% of burglaries

*69.8% of larceny thefts ($50.00 +)

*90.8% of auto theft and

*87.8% of the arsons committed

Again it is not gender as such which produces this violence and this pretheoretical rebellion. Males in other societies commit far less crime than do women in our societies. Rather it is the cultural conditioning through which males are put. There are many males who do not use violence; many societies in which neither gender are violent.

From their first christmas to their last football game, American males are taught to be aggressive, competitive, possessive, and demanding. Males in America are expected to be the breadwinners in the home. When jobs are scarce, some men provide for their families by illegal behavior.

Males are taught to be winners. It is impossible for 100% of a population to win 100% of the time. Failure is programmed into the system. Males are taught to win and some win by antisocial means.

Males are taught, in America, to be in control. Indeed, men are the primary agents of social control of women. Given the compulsion to control and the culture of violence in American, violence against women is programmed into the system.

Masculinity and Policy The most interesting variable in promoting crime is not maleness but masculinity. Being a male is a biological fact is has no particular relation to crime when examined across cultures.

Being masculine is a cultural fact. It is strongly related to violent crime. The lesson you must learn here is that, if we are to reduce violent crime, we must make radical changes in the cultural values we instill in boys. We must teach boys to be gentle, sustaining, cooperative, enabling, and loving.

We must teach young men to be human beings first and male second. Young men must discover that it is better to invest desire in human relations than in control, in possession of cars and stereos or in competition with other alienated males or females.

We must teach young men how to achieve in nonviolent ways and give them the jobs so they may. We must reward cooperative behavior more than we reward competitive. We must look to the gentle religions of the East; to the gentle roles of the women for ideas in how to program violence out and introduce compassion into the socialization process; the play process; the work process and the family process.

RACE Afro-Americans appear to be much more criminal than are Anglos. The data appear to support the racist arguments of genetic inferiority...but the data are misleading. You can see from the data that, race and street crime do have a strong connection.

Of the index crimes, Afro-Americans were charged with:

*61.5% of robberies

*44.9% of the murders

*46.0% of forcible rapes

*38.1% of aggravated assaults

*28.5% of burglaries

*30.3% of larceny thefts ($50.00 +)

*30.2% of auto theft and

*20.9% of the arsons committed

Since, according to census data, Afro-Americans make up 11% of the American population, you could easily believe that Afro-Americans are 2,3,4, or 6 times as likely to commit crime than are Whites. But there are several facts which contradict this assumption; the relationship between race and crime disappears when social class is held constant:

*Racism puts Afro-Americans into the underclass where street crime is a very accessible parallel economic option for satisfying false and real needs in pretheoretical ways.

*class position rather than race determines criminality. Middle class Afro-Americans do not commit more white collar crime than do middle class whites. Lower class Afro-Americans do not commit more street crime than do lower class whites.

There are more Afro-Americans and Anglos in the underclass by a factor of 4 so there are more Afro-Americans on the street accommodating themselves to their disemployment by using crime to reunite production and distribution.

*Afro-American people in other countries do not commit more crime than do white people in this country. If race were the source of crime, Afro-Americans engage in about the same amount of crime in all societies.

*White people in America commit far more of the other kinds of crime than their distribution in the population would predict. Whites commit almost all of the political crime, most of the white collar crime and virtually all of the corporate crime in America.

If only the crimes of the elite are examined, it would give the same illusion of race and criminality but it would be Afro-Americans who point to the 'innate' criminality of Anglos.

*The distribution of people with Afro-American ancestry is far more widespread than the official census data leads one to believe. Most of us share most 'Black genes.'

Through sexual alliances and passing about 90% of the population in the South have Afro-American genes passed on by their parents.

That means there should be a dense series rather than a categorical break in the rates of crime committed by Afro-Americans and Whites...the higher the percentage of white genes, the lower the percentage of crime; no one tests this since it is impossible to identity the genes which belong to and only to people who are labelled Afro-American.

It is perceived genetic distribution upon which people are labelled Black rather than upon an analysis of the distribution of genes thought to be unique to Afro-Americans.

Cross section of hair, shape of skull, pigmentation, muscle connection, blood chemistry and other physical parts are indeed shaped by genes but have no direct effect on behavior.

In her review of the literature on race and street crime, Joanne Belknap of Michigan State University reported that the overwhelming relationship between race and property crime disappeared when economic factors were controlled. She cites the claim of Blau and Blau that crimes of violence are produced by variables other than race.

It is being Black-in-America which produces the linkage between race and crime...not being Afro-American per se. When you eliminate disemployment, almost all of the correlation between race and crime disappears.

The social location of street crime in among the underclass; crime is not located among Afro-Americans...rather Afro-Americans are forced into the underclass by racism and the underclass is produced by the tendency of capitalism to disemploy people.

If criminology texts in America covered only white collar crime or only corporate crime instead of street crime to develop theories about crime, then you would find Afro-American criminologists wondering why Whites were so prone to crime...and teaching White kids that they are natural criminals.

Race, Crime and Policy There are several things which would help eliminate the relationship between racism and crime. First, eliminate the structure of racism; then full employment; programs of special help to those street kids, Afro-American and Anglo who have accommodated themselves to life on the street.

The costs of these policies will be great in terms of political struggle and in terms of social resources. But they will be far cheaper, in human terms, than discarding 10 or 20 percent of the population; maintaining part of them on welfare; storing some of them in prison; repairing the harm done to victims and living with the ugly feelings you find between Afro-Americans and Whites.

OTHER STRUCTURAL FACTORS There are several features of American life which engenders street crime. In Table 12-1, below, you will find many of the variables listed together with an estimate** of how closely each is connected to the Showcase measure of street crime which includes the major forms of theft, rape and murder.

Table 10.1

SOME STRUCTURAL CORRELATES OF STREET CRIME

--poverty -.22

--Disemployment .28 *

--drop out rate .34 *

--alcohol purchases .33 **

--Penthouse readers .44 **

--Newcomers .39 **

--Population shift .47 **

--Density .07

--Church membership -.33 **

--Traditional feminism -.39 **

--female headed homes +.29 *

--divorce +.28 *

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From Showcase, a data base

When the correlations in Table 12-1 are marked by asterisks it means that there may be some causal connection. One asterisk (*) means that there is some co-variation which may be due to chance and two (**) means that there is a strong connection between selected forms of street crime and the variable named...which may be causal but unlikely to chance and chance alone.

 

Poverty There are many who believe that street crime is produced by poverty. That is not true. Most of the poor people in Mexico do not commit crime. Most of the poor people in Canada do not commit crime. Most of the poor people in the USA do not commit crime.

Such a view ignores the long history of people who live in poor countries with very low crime rates. It ignores those who take vows of poverty and live to help people. Generally, if there is community, there are low crime rates whether people are poor or rich.

As you can see from Table 12-1, above, there is a weak but negative relationship between poverty and crime. States with a lot of poor folks tend to have less crime. They are also states with rural life styles. It is community not the poverty or wealth which predicts on crime rates.

Always remember, poor folks are in jail because:

--they are disemployed or work part time

--legal service is a for-profit commodity

--rich folks don't steal cars or mug old ladies: they commit white collar crime and corporate crime.

--Poor folk can't afford bail to stay out of jail or

find work to get out on probation

--Poor people around the world are usually the victims of crime rather than the perpetuators.

Where there is a lot of community together with its mutual aid and attention to collective needs, poverty brings sharing and caring. Where there is little solidarity, wealth brings thieves and bandits. Theories of poverty mystify the origins of crime.

Jobs --Disemployment .28 *

States with high unemployment rates also have high rates of street crime. You will find data on jobs and crime in many places in this text. The important thing to remember is that economic recessions bring an increase in crime and in the numbers of people who are put in prison when there is a lot of possessive individualism and false needs.

Alienated from economic power and having very little social power, disemployed males tend to resort to physical power to achieve their purpose. And remember, many people brought home violence from the war to use on the street and in the home with which to meet the problems of life.

Education --drop out rate .34 *

--$ per pupil .37 **

States with high drop out rates have high crime rates. The lesson here is that some schools do not serve minority kids well...they are pushed out by the racism of the school and pulled out by the economics of their family.

Spending more money will not help...as you can see from the second item. Japan spends far less per pupil than does the USA but their educational process is far, far better.

Remember, we are talking about street crime. If we were talking about white collar crime, corporate crime or political crime, the relationship between crime and education would change dramatically. For those crimes, the more education, the more likely the crime.

Drinking --alcohol .33 **

--wine .45 **

As you can see, our use of alcohol no longer contributes to solidarity only. It also co-relates to crime. Without the sense of the sacred created in solidarities created with the aid of alcohol, drinking turns back on society to deeply damage social relations...and the bodies of those who drink.

Pornography --Penthouse readers .44 **

--Playboy readers .46 **

Many will seize upon the strong correlation between these semi-pornographic magazines and higher crime rates to conclude that sexist magazines lead on to crime. Again you should be careful to put such use of sexual material into a cultural setting. In some settings, such use increases the depersonalization of human sexuality which contributes to rape, assault and battering; in other settings there is no such relationship.

In Japan, there are semi-pornographic comic books on sale everywhere. Men of all ages read them. They are very violent, very sexist, and very popular. Yet there is very little rape and physical abuse of women in Japan. The cultural setting is most important.

Japan is one of the most integrated societies in the world. The obligations of On tie one into the family, the job, and the larger society beyond thought or question. One simply reads such magazines and confines them to the world of make believe and just pretend. They do not support the life actions nor do life actions support such reading.

The better analysis is that there are prior factors in the USA which tend to push up both crime and interest in pornography. The alienated economics, alienated sexuality and alienated power of capitalism works with particular virulence in America. In Japan, capitalism is moderated by the solidarity of the family and of work.

--Solidarity --Newcomers .39 **

Measures --Population shift .47 **

States with a lot of people moving into the state are low in solidarity and high in unemployment. People move to look for jobs.

--Church membership -.33 **

It is not going to church that is important; it is using your religion in prosocial ways...living the principles of fellowship, sisterhood, sharing, helping and putting spiritual values before material values in the community of your god which discourages crime.

There are many non-christians, nonbelievers who live in love and peace. They live a life without crime, violence or exploitation.

There are many white collar criminals who attend church regularly but leave their religious principles at the door when they leave church.

--Rural life -.36 **

States with a large rural population tend to have less crime. The Dakotas and some midwest states retain the virtues of hard work, thrift, sharing, saving and helping each other.

The Mennonites, an agricultural group living in the Dakotas, Montana and the prairie provinces of Canada, have the lowest crime rate of any group in the world. They own property collectively, provide well for the authentic needs of the individual and practice their religion in every life sphere.

--self employed -.34 **

States with a higher percentage of self employed persons tend to have lower crime rates...again, it is midwest states with a lot of farms, small business, and small towns. These are the best places to live in terms of quality of life variables but not so good in terms of getting rich and having lots of possessions.

In small businesses, there are personal relations between customer and owner in many spheres of life: family, church, neighborhoods, clubs, and parties. It is harder to be shameless and indifferent to the pain one inflicts on others when one must live with them face to face...and when one has bonds of care and affection.

--Senior Citizens -.25*

The percentage of older folks in a population tends to be associated with low crime rates...they don't commit it and they are far less likely to be victims.

As one gets older, one settles into a network of supporting, sharing friends, family and neighbors. One finds prosocial work, retires to adequate levels of income and then gives of oneself to the community in which one lives. States with a lot of senior citizens tend to have less crime. Of course, older folks who have a choice tend to move to low crime areas so the connection is interactive.

--Density .07

The population density of Europe is about 4 times higher that the USA but the crime rate is about 1/2. There are lots of cities in the world with very little crime. It is not density but rather individualism, low wages, high prices, and false needs of capitalist cities that produce crime.

--Gender Relations:

--Traditional feminism -.39 **

--couples -.42 **

--female headed homes +.29 *

--divorce +.28 *

There are a lot of conservative analysts who say that liberated women are to blame for the high crime rates: they should stay home, care for the children, help their husbands succeed, and make the home a clean and comfortable place to be. There is much to be said for such a home but there are marriage forms other than patriarchy which work for a good family life. More on this in the Lecture on Women.

Traditional feminism alone is not directly related to low street crime rates...rather it is part of a cultural package. both men and women in such a culture tend to work together to raise a family and to build community.

When there is no community or when there is self centered masculinity, traditional feminism comes back to betray the female to poverty, violence and despair. You can see the problem of the single mother in the third and fourth items above.

--Male Solidarities

--Hunting -.28 *

--Golfing -.39 *

--basketball -.23 *

--fishing -.09

States with a lot of men hunting, playing golf and attending basketball games together tend to have lower crime rates. Men who are members of prosocial solidarities tend to have low crime rates; those who are members of antisocial solidarities tend to have high crime rates. For example, gangs in Los Angeles have a lot of solidarity but are involved in drug traffic, mugging, vandalism and gang violence.

Guns It may come as a surprise to some students that states in which there are a lot of hunters, more members of the American Legion and members of the National Guard have low crime rates. Being into a gun culture is not necessarily violent and criminal if one uses the gun within a solidarity.

But there are problems with guns which contribute to crime and violence. James Wright and Peter Rossi of the University of Massachusetts have done some of the best work on guns and crime. Kathleen Daly of Yale has worked with Rossi and Wright to look at America Under the Gun. They say:

--There are 104 million households: 47% have guns

--There are between 120 and 180 Million guns in the USA

--Guns are used in 60% of violent crimes in the USA

--Guns are used in 3% of violent crimes in Japan

--Gun ownership is increasing faster than population

--Guns are most often used in murder, robbery, and suicide; more than other weapons.

--The gun industry produces about 5 Million guns a year.

--Gun dealers import a million more.

In their study of felons and firearms, Wright and Rossi found how criminals learned to use guns. They interviewed 1,982 inmates of 10 prisons located in ten regions of the country: Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

The sample matched the characteristics of inmates in all US prisons. They found:

--50% used a gun in one or more crimes

Of those who used guns in crime:

--most had fathers who owned guns

** --They first fired a gun at age 13.2

--they owned several hand guns

--30% carried a gun most of the time

--they preferred good, heavy guns.

--50% said they carried guns for fear their

victims might be armed.

--Some 80% get firearms other than by buying them

There is an epistemological break in the understanding of those who saw guns used in everyday life. The idea that guns were to be used against persons came early in the life of these young men. Such data argues for gun control.

Guns and Social Policy There are several points of policy you can derive from other countries which have few crimes of violence and fewer crimes with guns. These are:

--improve employment and wages for everyone

--restrict sharply handgun production and sale:

--license only shoulder guns; they are far safer.

--require proof of security measures for those who may legally own handguns.

Critics of gun control laws have pointed out, correctly, that the states with the strictest gun control laws have the highest rates of murder, robbery and rape. They also point out correctly, that Switzerland requires every adult male to own and maintain a gun.

What the advocates of the right to bear arms do not point out is that the guns in Switzerland are shoulder arms, not hand guns. They fail to note that Switzerland is a land of full employment and ranks among the leaders in social justice. They fail to report that crimes of violence do, in fact, increase as unemployment increases...though, as you learned in earlier, there was a time lag for the relationship to show clearly.

But there is a good point to take from all this. Guns are not the problem in the first place. They only become a problem in a conflict ridden society with a hugh underclass, false needs and great inequality in race, class, and gender relations.

CONCLUSION Street crime in America is among the worst in the world. The trend is for street crime to increase. The dynamics of street crime center around three economic factors and several cultural factors. The economic factors include disemployment, underemployment and false needs.

In order to meet the real and false needs of life in the USA, parallel economic systems develop...one of which is crime...in the effort to reunite production and distribution. Capitalism is the only one of the five great modes of production in history which does separate production from human need.

There are cultural factors which join with the economic factors which promote street crime. These include:

--Patriarchy [versus egalitarian relations]

--machismo [versus wholistic personality]

--The culture of violence [versus nonviolence]

--ethnic antagonisms [versus ethnic diversity]

As crime rates increase in America, there is a call for a bigger and better criminal justice system as a solution to crime. But the CJS simply does not work to deter crime or to rehabilitate the offender.

Radical changes in economic and social life in America must be undertaken if you are to create a low crime society. There are many ideas in the last Lecture for the radical transformation of America which crime calls forth. For now, the central answer to crime is jobs.

Jobs with decent wages in a praxis society and an economic policy oriented to the real needs of young people and their communities reduce the problem of crime in many other societies around the world. You can learn and you can emulate the best from other societies rather than creating and exporting the worst to the rest of the world.

The structures which promote praxis and thus help prevent street crime:

*Rites of passage and the social status they bestow.

*Adult status role assignments and the cooperative behavior they require.

*allocation of adult social identities and the stability of prosocial behavior they bring.

*Multiple parenting and the improved socialization it produces.

*Community based social control and the normative behavior it yields.

*Distributive justice and the repair of criminal harm it brings.

Low crime societies exist. Pockets of low crime communities exist in America: Hutterites, Amish, Mennonites, Mormons, rural towns and urban neighborhoods. Most people in America live in peace and community with their friends and family.