Crime And Class Research Paper

If crime is related to social class, then social structural factors such as inequality, poverty, and labor markets are likely to be important causes of crime. If not, criminologists must look to factors that may cut more evenly across class lines, such as individual pathology or dysfunctional family processes. Stratification re-searchers are becoming interested in crime for analogous reasons. Individual-level evidence suggests that crime and the societal reaction to crime can disrupt individual attainment (Hagan 1993), while macro level studies show that crime and punishment may alter unemployment rates and economic performance (Western and Beckett 1999). This research paper first reviews empirical generalizations about class and crime, and the conceptual and methodological tools used to interpret them. It then outlines recent theoretical and empirical developments and diverse research strategies to further elaborate the relationship, concluding that the relation between criminal behavior and social class is likely to be reciprocal or endogenous.

1. Measurement

1.1 Measurement Of Crime

The relationship observed between crime and class is sensitive to the measurement of each concept. There are three primary sources of crime data: the offenders, the official enforcement agencies, and the victims. Self-report studies, typically based on samples of high-school students, generally report very weak relation-ships between social class and delinquency (Tittle et al. 1978). However, social class is a strong and significant predictor of official law violation, as measured by arrest and punishment, all over the world (Braithwaite 1981). Surveys of prison inmates show that they are educationally and economically disadvantaged relative to the general population. Prior to their most recent arrest, only two-thirds of inmates in the USA had completed high-school, one-third were not employed, and less than half reported annual income greater than $10,000 (US Department of Justice 1993). The relation between social class and criminal victimization depends on the type of crime under consideration. In 1998, in the USA, the violent victimization rate among households reporting annual income greater than $35,000 was only half the violent victimization rate of households earning less than $7,500. For property crimes such as theft, however, the highest victimization rate occurs among households earning $50,000 or more per year (US Department of Justice 1999).

It has proven difficult to reconcile the conflicting pictures of the class–crime relationship provided by self-report, official, and victimization data. Some argue that the discrepancy arises because self-reports generally capture a different domain of behavior than official data. When self-reports are compared with police records, the results show high rates of congruence for white, in-school youths, but less agreement for black males with an official history of delinquency (Hindelang et al. 1981). Some attribute these discrepancies to under-reporting by black males, while others point to race biases in arrest records that overstate the arrests of blacks relative to whites. Most agree that greater police attention to lower-class areas exacerbates class (and race) discrepancies in self-report and official data.

The nonsignificance of class in self-report surveys may also be a product of the compressed frequency and severity range of offending typically recorded in self-report surveys (Elliott and Ageton 1980). In support of the argument that self-reports and official data tap different domains of criminal behavior, some investigations find that middle-class and upper-class delinquency is less serious than delinquency by less advantaged youth. Nevertheless, the strong negative relation between social class and official delinquency and the far smaller class differences in self-report delinquency are well-founded empirical generalizations.

Any discussion of class and criminal behavior would be incomplete without noting that social class is one of the defining characteristics of white-collar crime, or ‘crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation’ (Sutherland 1983, p. 7). By definition, this conceptualization assumes that some degree of power and influence is necessary to commit crimes such as bank embezzlement or insider trading. Because the structure of opportunity to commit such crimes is bound up with social position, however, it is difficult to identify meaningful comparison groups to determine whether white-collar, occupational, or corporate criminals are any more or less deviant than the general population.

Finally, most self-report studies have been con-ducted on youth, often in school settings. Un-fortunately, we know comparatively little about the class distribution of self-reported adult offending in the general population. Class differences in the longitudinal sequence or criminal careers of individual offenders have rarely been explored, although lower-class offenders may have higher crime frequency and participation rates, earlier ages of onset, and longer career durations (Janson and Wikstrom 1995). With the aforementioned caveats regarding occupational and adult offending, however, the results of self-report studies are generally consistent, reporting weak negative relations between social class and crime. Much of the remaining variation among these studies can be attributed to differences in the conceptualization and measurement of social class.

1.2 Measurement Of Class

The effects of social class on self-reported crime depend on whether researchers use gradational or relational class measures. Researchers using continuous gradational measures, such as socioeconomic status (SES), generally find little association between SES and crime. Investigations that operationalize class as a relational measure, based on Marxian ownership or Weberian authority generally report somewhat stronger associations (Brownfield 1986). One problem with many class indicators, however, is that they omit the most disadvantaged individuals and families—the underclass or surplus population. Theories of crime such as Merton’s (1938) anomie model point to the importance of sustained poverty and limited opportunity within a cultural context of common success symbols. Along these lines, some research suggests that parental unemployment is a positive predictor of self-reported delinquency (Farnworth et al. 1994).

Most of the research considered so far actually considers social class origins rather than the social positions or interests of the offenders themselves (Stark 1979). In part, this is because the peak age of offending for many crimes occurs in the mid-to-late-teens, preceding the transition to full-time employment in many societies. To the extent that the social class positions of adolescents have been considered in the delinquency literature, schools are generally the primary (if not exclusive) setting. Nevertheless, many adolescents and young adults have established in-dependent class positions outside the educational arena, particularly those who have left home and school. Research on homeless youth that assesses class in terms of unemployment, hunger, and lack of shelter, reports strong ‘foreground’ class effects on street crime (Hagan and McCarthy 1997).

In summary, the strongest relations between social class and crime have been observed in studies that use relational rather than gradational class measures. In fact, the most important class distinction is likely between the most disadvantaged and everybody else. Though some specifications of the ‘underclass’ concept blur the distinction between class and criminal behavior by including law violation (in the form of violence, drug use, or other crime) among its many manifestations, such tautological reasoning is un-necessary to establish the relationship. Sustained parental unemployment in an individual’s background or more immediate and extreme material deprivation places persons at greater risk of offending.

2. Sampling, Units Of Analysis, And Analytic Approaches

2.1 Sampling

As the preceding discussion suggests, class effects on criminal behavior are unlikely to be observed unless the research methodology ensures an adequate representation of extremely disadvantaged respondents and a meaningful comparison group. ‘Street criminology’ differs from ‘school criminology’ (Hagan and McCarthy 1997) in both theoretical and analytic orientation. In particular, each approach implies a different domain of criminal behavior and a correspondingly different sampling strategy. Student samples can yield elegant tests of theory among nationally representative samples, although results may not generalize to more extreme law violation. Street samples are more difficult to obtain, in part because complete sampling frames are rarely available. Nevertheless, the latter approach is best suited to identifying respondents from truly disadvantaged class origins and more marginalized current class positions.

2.2 Units Of Analysis

Studies conducted at the aggregate rather than the individual level of analysis have generally shown stronger relationships between social class and crime. Housing costs affect the population composition of a neighborhood, which, in turn, influences the distribution of social groups with differential risks for offending (Janson and Wikstrom 1995). At the com-munity level, the studies of Shaw and McKay (1942) showing delinquency rates in Chicago by neighborhood economic status remain among the most powerful statements in this line of research. At least part of the individual-level discrepancy between self-reported and official crime and delinquency is thus explained by greater police attention to lower-class areas (Sampson 1986).

Emerging multilevel methods are beginning to shed light on the intervening mechanism connecting class with neighborhood crime rates. Research merging individual-level data with neighborhood characteristics shows that the effect of poverty and un-employment rates on violent crime is mediated in large part by ‘collective efficacy,’ or a community’s capacity for informal social control and mutual trust (Sampson et al. 1997). Finally, national-level research on class structure and crime suggests that inequality (Braithwaite 1979), state welfare spending (Messner and Rosenfeld 1997), and unemployment (Archer and Gartner 1984) bear some relation to official crime rates.

2.3 Qualitative And Quantitative Analytic Approaches

Many qualitative researchers take the association between class and crime for granted, focusing their efforts on gangs or individuals in extremely marginalized circumstances. Increasingly, however, such work also includes a comparative dimension. Mercer Sullivan (1989) for example, shows how early criminal behavior can disrupt adolescent education and employment, which in turn increases adult criminal behavior. By examining cliques of boys from similar class positions but different neighborhoods and ethnicities, Sullivan identifies contingencies such as local job networks and illegal markets that mediate the relation between class origins and crime. Other ethnographic work illustrates how street crime is woven into the everyday lives of some individuals and neighborhoods (Venkatesh 1997), identifying the critical turning points in their criminal histories. Because such insights are difficult to glean from the quantitative analysis of survey data, several prominent quantitative criminologists have added a qualitative element to their investigations (Hagan and McCarthy 1997, Sampson and Laub 1993).

3. Promising Avenues For Research

3.1 Reciprocal Relations

The reciprocal relationship between attainment and deviance that Sullivan (1989) noted among dis-advantaged adolescents has been explored in a number of important quantitative studies. Analyzing a cohort of London boys born in the 1950s, Hagan (1993) finds that adolescent criminal ‘embeddedness,’ measured by delinquent activities, friends, and parental criminal convictions, has a strong effect on unemployment in young adulthood. Similarly, in a sample of American delinquent and non-delinquent boys born in the 1920s, Sampson and Laub (1993) report that early juvenile incarceration decreases later job stability, which, in turn, exacerbates adult criminal behavior. Thus, social class and crime are likely to be reciprocally deter-mined.

The type and severity of offending however, remains important in determining crime effects on class. Substance use and minor delinquency have little effect on the life outcomes of a predominantly middle-class sample, partly because they are likely to receive numerous ‘second chances’ (Jessor et al. 1993). Similarly, Hagan (1991) finds that identifying with a subculture of delinquency reduced occupational attainment among working-class boys, but identifying with a ‘party subculture’ had a small positive effect on attainment among non-working-class boys. In such cases, the type and severity of offending determine the sign as well as the magnitude of the effects of crime on social position.

3.2 Elaborating The Relationship

Criminological researchers have elaborated the relationship between class and crime by specifying and testing interactions between social class and other factors and by seeking the intervening factors that interpret the relation. With regard to interaction, the relationship between social class and crime may be conditional on background characteristics, such as race, sex, or other characteristics. Power-control theory, for example, posits that social class interacts with gender to affect common delinquency, receiving mixed empirical support (Hagan et al. 1987).

Regarding intervening factors, Wright et al. report both positive and negative social-psychological paths connecting socioeconomic status and delinquency, characterizing the relationship as ‘causation but not correlation’ (1999, p. 179). High SES increases delinquency by increasing risk taking and social power and by decreasing conventional values, but reduces delinquency by diminishing alienation and economic strain, and increasing aspirations (Wright et al. 1999). Other research suggests that class effects on crime and deviance are largely mediated by family factors and school performance (Hagan and McCarthy 1997).

Even if the bivariate relationship between class and crime is close to zero, as some self-report research suggests, further research on interactions is necessary to explain how we get to zero—to specify the positive and negative paths linking social class and criminal behavior. Where the bivariate relationship between class and crime is stronger, as in studies using parental unemployment or official crime data, further research is needed to identify the catalysts that transfer class origins into criminal outcomes.

3.3 Cross-National And Comparative Work

A great deal of the research discussed above has been conducted on English-speaking samples, such as Hagan’s work on British (1993) and Canadian (1991) data, the Wright et al. (1999) piece on New Zealanders, and the many American studies reviewed by Tittle et al. (1978). Nevertheless, Braithwaite’s comprehensive international review suggests that patterns observed in these nations are replicated across the world with a ‘degree of consistency which is unusual in social science’ (1981, p. 38). To date, however, few truly cross-national or comparative efforts have been under-taken. Most studies have taken nation states as the level of analysis, identifying the structural-level correlates of homicide rates (e.g., Archer and Gartner 1984). One individual-level effort, comparing working-class males in London and Stockholm, found remarkable similarity in the criminal career patterns of the two groups (Farrington and Wikstrom 1994).

It is difficult to locate the comparable samples and indicators necessary to test the stability of individual-level class effects across national contexts. Nevertheless, such research will be necessary to generalize knowledge of class and crime and to begin to disentangle the relation between social structure and criminal behavior in varying cultural settings.

4. Taking Stock

The concepts of class and crime are fundamental to understanding social position and social order and disorder. Not surprisingly, their relationship is complex and multifaceted. Social class is a strong predictor of official law violation by all measures and a weaker but consistent predictor of self-reported law violation by gradational measures. Researchers are elaborating the relationship by specifying the interactions and the intervening mechanisms connecting class and crime. In particular, it has become increasingly clear that criminal behavior and social class are likely to be reciprocally related throughout the life course.

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