Soc 322 – Street Crime Last Outline:  Before/After Industrialization  Social Control & Crime  Changes in the US Work Force  Globalization and the US Work Force  The “New Class System”  Class Reproduction - how it works  Summary - the context of crime

Soc 322 – Street Crime Tonight:  Background in Europe  Transition in the US  Types of Street Crime  Types of Street Criminals  “The London Hanged”

Soc 322 – Street Crime The Roman Empire and Collapse The “Dark Ages” - the Manorial System Early Industrial Revolution and Collapse (the Plague and recovery)

Soc 322 – Street Crime Recovery and Surplus Populations Industrialization/Urbanization/“Crime” “Transportation” – out migration The “Great Transformation” (Karl Polanyi)

Soc 322 – Street Crime The US - Before WW2 1700s & 1800s - Surplus pops move west 1870s s Industrialization, growth 1920s - decreasing jobs & economic collapse 1930s - the Great Depression WW2 ends the Depression

Soc 322 – Street Crime The US - After WW2 Socialist Reforms: Remove Young/Old from workforce Raise Wages Prosperity! But also a new class system

Soc 322 – Street Crime Street Crime Rates 1950s - new prosperity, low crime 1960s - baby boomers hit prime crime age (mid teens) - crime rates skyrocket. emergence of the “underclass” & “illegal economies”

Soc 322 – Street Crime 1970s - baby boomers start aging out (mid 20s) and crime rates level off Should have continued gradual decline But surplus population problems continue - chronic poverty – the “underclass” those "left behind”

Soc 322 – Street Crime Counter Factors: (keeping crime/violence rates high)  Illegal economies in poor areas  Globalization and dropping wages  The “drug war”  Social policies (e.g., welfare to work)  The “imprisonment binge” (they get out!)

Soc 322 – Street Crime 1990s - big drop in street crime -- the economic boom (technology) 2000s - boom ended, so did crime decreases Crime rates have now leveled off at about the rates in the 1970s

Soc 322 – Street Crime Types of Street Crime: Most Prevalent - Property & Victimless Most costly - Victimless (enforcement) Most publicized - Violent crime

Soc 322 – Street Crime Types of Street Criminals Interviews with prisoners (Irwin/Austin) Small number of “Criminals” Huge number of “Losers” ** Excerpt from authors conclusion

Soc 322 – Street Crime "Instead of a large, menacing horde of dangerous criminals [like the media and politicians portray], our inner cities actually contain a growing number of young men, mostly nonwhite, who become involved in unskilled petty crime because of no avenues to a viable, satisfying conventional life. The majority (65 percent) of our prison samples had not finished high school, 64 percent had no job skills, over half had never been employed steadily, and 56 percent were not working at the time of arrest.“ "The same is not true of a small percentage of our sample -- those who appeared to be committed to crime in spite of other options. In addition, a few were guilty of very serious crimes. However, the general picture is one quite different than the distorted images that have fueled our imprisonment binge."

Soc 322 – Street Crime The London Hanged Linebaugh’s central thesis - DP was not about punishing crime - it was about “terrorizing” impoverished workers (and surplus pops) into submission.

Soc 322 – Street Crime Key question: Why did these impoverished workers risk hanging for such little gain? This seems (and is!!) very irrational! Any modern parallel?

Soc 322 – Street Crime Irrational response to impossible dilemma. “Master, Provisions are high and Trade is dead, that we are half- starving and it is well to die at once, as die by Inches.”

Soc 322 – Street Crime Comment: Note that crime didn’t work - crime was a losing proposition because poor people could never “steal” enough to escape their situation!

Soc 322 – Street Crime But also note that “deterrence” didn’t work either – the situation was so hopeless that even the most brutal kinds of punishment had no effect at all!

Soc 322 – Street Crime Next: Corporate Crime Corporate crime reading Corporate Predators study guide