Introduction to criminology Assigned Reading summaries- week 7-crime drop PDF

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Criminology- Textbook notes- week Realist Criminology, the New Aetiological Crisis and the Crime Drop

Abstract 

perceived deficiencies of both mainstream and critical criminology in relation to their explanations of the crime drop. It argues that the failure of criminologists to provide a convincing and plausible explanation of the recent decrease in recorded crime in Britain North America and other countries has resulted in a new aetiological crisis. It is suggested that the failure to explain what is arguably the most significant development in relation to crime in living memory is no accident, but rather a function of the theoretical and methodological inadequacies that are prevalent in academic criminology.

Introduction 

Writing Realist Criminology (2014) was motivated by a number of considerations o More up to date statement about limitations and challenges in criminology. o Identify the limits of liberalism o to develop a stance that is not anti-statist or anti-punishment rather one that works both in and against the state in order to take crime, victimisation and punishment seriously. o Link theory and practice in order to provide the basis for the development of a left social democratic epistemology and methodology. o Examine and interrogate the richness and subtleties of cultural criminology which is accused of having idealist associations a lack of appreciation of victimisation and little interest in policy developments (O’Brien 2005). o Contribute to the development of a public criminology that aims to make criminology more socially and politically relevant. o Link theory and policy

The aetiological crisis 

Young 1997-Aetiological crisis- pointed out that, on both sides of the Atlantic between 1960s to the end of the 1980s, crime continued to increase despite periods of full employment and decreasing levels of poverty and deprivation. Recorded crime continued to increase in both Britain and the US despite growth of incarceration served to undermine the conservative claims that getting tough on crime would serve to reduce it. There was a lack of explanatory power which was not restricted to the conventional forms of liberal and conservative criminology but was also evident amongst critical and radical criminologists. Dominant criminological approaches were all deficient. The bankruptcy of these theoretical approaches signalled the limitations of criminological theory and paved the way for the rise in forms of administrative criminology.

The crime drop   

Since early 1990s in Britain and the US and other countries, recorded crime has decreased year on year. This decrease was unpredicted and for a number of years remained unacknowledged amongst the criminological community. There was no serious commentary on this development until 2000.

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Blumstein and Wallman-Development of mass incarceration, changing forms of policing, the role of guns and patterns of drug use are all presented as leaded contenders in the search for a prime cause of the drop. Spelman 2000-imprisonment was a contributing factor to the crime drop and most of the responsibility for this decrease rests with improvements in the economy, changes in the age structure and other unexamined social factors. Eck and Maguire 2000- ‘the most plausible explanation is that police actions interacted with other criminal justice policies’. However, the other policies remain unspecified, as does the nature of the proposed interaction. Karman 2000-crime drop in New York-claims that zero tolerance policing and other changes that took place in the era were responsible for the decrease in homicide in particular and the crime drop in general. Crime dropped in a number of North American cities that had adopted different policing strategies. Conklin 2003-questions the viability of the mono casual approach- a range of factors probably came together but claims that the role imprisonment was the most important reason why crime rates fell in the 1990s. He suggests that the problem is that many of the variables ‘defy easy measurement’ and that ‘the simplification of independent variables can obscure their impact on the dependent variable’ p192.The real problem is to know a priori what counts as an independent variable and that possibility that the relevant independent variables are not included in this analysis. Sayer 2010-Although there is a widespread assumption that aggression equations are virtually synonymous with casual analysis, this is not the case. Regularities are not sufficient conditions for the identifications of causes. They are not even necessary conditions. The perennial problem is distinguishing casual from contingent relations. Cronklin’s book adds little to our understanding of this issue and is unlikely to stimulate much constructive discussion about how to reduce crime further. Levitt 2004-legaisation of abortion- argues reduced the at-risk populations of potential criminals as an explanation of the crime drop. Zimring 2007-argues that the legalisation of abortion thesis is limited by the lack of fit between the introduction of potential criminals and the beginning of the reduction of crime. Also, other methods of birth control were available and probably widely used before the new legalisation, which would have reduced birth rates amongst the poor. Zimring 2007- claims that there is not a single cause of the crime drop and it was a ‘classic example of multiple causation, with some of the many conflicting causes playing a dominant role’. 195 He notes that crime declined in Canada over the same period as the US although economic, social and criminal justice developments were very different in Canada during this period. Zimring 2007-fails to resolve the methological problems that he identified in his multi-factor approach since he doesn’t explain how these factors might be casually connected. Wilson 2011- notes that measuring and examining culture raises methodological difficulties, he has no doubt correct that explanations based on broad socio-cultural terms offer the possibility of developing a more plausible and credible explanation of the crime drop than many of those accounts that have been offered- cultural perspective. Sampson 2008- examined the relation between immigration and the crime drop. Argued that first generation immigrants are held to be generally hard working and law abiding and that the recent influx of immigrants in North America which are mostly Hispanic, may have had some impact in diluting the criminogenic culture of some US cities.

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Bell and Machin 2011-Research on immigration and crime in Europe, however, presents a more mixed picture, but there is some indication that the involvement in crime by some immigrant groups is relatively low. Farrell et al 2011- security hypothesis- routine activities and opportunity theory, they claim that the implementation of various forms of crime prevention measures such as car locks and other target handling techniques has deterred prospective offenders. Limitations of security hypothesis- timing of the introduction of the various security measures that the authors refer to do not match up well with the timeline of the decrease in different forms of crimes. It does not go very far in explaining the simultaneous decrease in violent crime. Home Office 2015;1- The security hypothesis is largely silent on why violence has fallen alongside theft. And for acquisitive crime, the case that better security caused the drop rests on the largely untested assumption that car immobilisers also prevented or deterred thieves from committing other types or theft. Data suggests that the opposite is equally likely that as one thing becomes harder to steal, thieves switch to something else. So, because all types of theft fell markedly at the same time in the mid-1990s it seems likely that a change in offender propensity for crime is more likely to provide the main explanation. Farrell 2013- 5 tests that are creditable explanations of the crime drop must meet: o Whether there are reasonable empirical grounds o If the hypothesis stands up to cross national comparisons o Hypothesis is compatible with the fact that crime increased over the past decades o Explains variations in trends amongst different types of crime. o Hypothesis is compatible with variations in the timings of crime falls between countries and crime types. Matthews 2001- there was a decrease in commercial robbery int eh UK in the 1990s- it was during the 1980s that a range of measures including cameras, alarms and screens were introduced in the UK- these made little impact on the number of commercial robberies during this period. The decrease in commercial robberies in 1990s was a function of a cultural shift involving the demise of old style professional robbers by more amateur and spontaneous offenders and this also involves a shift towards more accessible options. The other major response in the UK to the decrease in recorded crime involves denial of its occurrence and a claim that the apparent decrease is a function of the manipulation of crime figures by agencies or that crime has been displaced. There is evidence that the police have changes recording practices in recent years and have admitted massaging crime figures. Travis 2014- In December 2014, the gold standard national statistics status was withdrawn from the police in England and Wales due to discovery that they had been fiddling with the figures. The continued widespread decrease in a range of crimes over time, particularly those whose the police are able to limit discretion or where there I not much room for manipulation, suggests that the is a decrease is real across come crimes. The international nature of the crime drop also suggests that crime is decreasing in different countries where recording practices have remained stable.

The crime drop and criminological theory 

Leonard 1982- traditional criminological theory is incapable of explaining the nature or patterns of female crime.

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Bauman 1991- the era of liquid modernity involves new forms of inclusion and exclusion. Increasing social divisions occur alongside the search for community and identity. Young 2003- world of moral ambivalence, characterised by greater tolerance on one hand and indifference on the other. This worlds of changing agency and structure and the art of criminological analysis is to capture these 2 dimensions simultaneously. Young 1992- Labelling theory, has always suffered from the deficiency of being one sided by focussing on the social reaction to deviance. Lea 1992- realists have presented the square of crime, pointing out that crims is not only an act and a reaction but also has a number of formal and informal dimensions that combine to create the phenomenon of crime. Moynihan 1993- ‘define deviance down’ through forms of diversion, the use of cautions and lesser penalties- have minimal effect on the overall crime or custody rate (Garland 1996). Social disorganisation theory= deficient. Increased mobility and immigration in a period of globalisation, should, result in an increased crime rate ad a result of the breakdown of both formal and informal controls. The demise of the community together with the death of the modern family alongside forms of economic displacement should, according to social disorganisation theory, lead to increases in crime. rational choice, routine activities and opportunity theories have historically provided a limited, if not distorted, form of explanation. Conceptions of the offender as a rational actor weighing the cost benefit of criminal involvement, has always been an exaggeration. Hayward 2007-Cultural criminologists have emphasised the emotional and risk-taking nature of much criminal involvement and rejected forms of explanation based on notions of instrumental rationality. Routine activities theory suffers similar limitations. We only know that the offender was motivated, that there was an attractive target and that there was a lack of suitable guardians after the crime has taken place. Ekblom and Tilley 2000- opportunity- based theories do not account for the planning of crimes or the differential predispositions to commit crime or that many individuals deny given opportunities....