Soc 322 – History Before Industrialization US Agricultural, Rural, Stable “Community” After Industrialization US Industrial, Urban, Change & Mobility “Society”

Soc 322 – History Three Levels of Social Control: Informal Self-Control Formal  Self Control is internalized SC  Formal SC is much less effective!

Soc 322 – History US Work Force AGRI % INDUS % SERV % * Patterns *

Soc 322 – History Robert Reich  US not autonomous  One region of a huge global economy  Several service sectors

Soc 322 – History Robert Reich - sectors  Symbolic-analytic services  Routine production services  Routine personal services + Government workers + The poor

Soc 322 – History US Class System Capitalist class 1% Business/Professional class10% Stable Working Class30% Unstable Workingclass40% The Poor20% Top half -- Bottom half

Soc 322 – History Class Reproduction  Class Segregation (housing, school, etc.)  Marriage  Education  Others (recreation, etc.)

Soc 322 – History Top Half/Bottom Half Top half prosperous Bottom half deteriorating and trapped Why??

Soc 322 – History Summary 1. Because of community and informal social control, crime is low in agricultural societies.

Soc 322 – History 2. Rising agricultural productivity (fewer people can produce more food) produces huge surplus populations and this leads to crime and violence (also produces new work force for factories ---- industrialization). Surplus pops - Continued for several centuries in Europe as regions industrialized/urbanized

Soc 322 – History 3. As surplus pops are forced into factory towns (mostly young males from different backgrounds and little informal social control) crime and violence skyrocket. When the crime and violence threaten them, the elites/rich usually responded with severe repression (public torture and executions, etc.)

Soc 322 – History 4. Eventually formal social control (law) emerges in the towns, but it is not very effective - crime and violence decrease only when the surplus pops decrease out migration to the "new world“ transporting “criminals”

Soc 322 – History 5. In the U.S. we got Europe's surplus pops. But as they became surplus here, they continually moved west so we had low crime rates for two centuries (1700s and 1800s). Note: unless we consider slavery and the genocide directed against Native Americans to be "criminal," which some of us do! + Conquest, Imperialism, etc.

Soc 322 – History 6. Our crime rates remained relatively low as we industrialized (late 1800's through 1920s) but in the 1920s we began to produce large surplus pops and this led to more crime, and later to the Depression and World War 2. (back to the work force chart)

Soc 322 – History 7. After WW 2 there was a "baby boom." The baby boomers reached the prime crime age (15-25) in the 1960s and crime skyrocketed as we had millions more young people and not enough entry-level jobs (poorer baby boomers became surplus pops!)

Soc 322 – History 8. Crime started to level off in the 1970s as the baby boomers "aged out" of crime but changes in the class system and globalization led to the "bottom half" of the population being "trapped" in an econ downward spiral - jobs are going overseas (for cheap labor) and wages are dropping (cheap labor competition).

Soc 322 – History 9. The economic dilemma and related stresses of bottom half life (unstable wc and poor) leads to huge amounts of petty street crime (and some serious crime) most embedded in "illegal economies" (stolen goods, drugs, the sex/porn industry, etc.).

Soc 322 – History 10. In summary, the bottom half is a new form of surplus population - increasingly extraneous to a high tech economy, no place to go like previous surplus pops, and the stresses are increasing with globalization. This is the structural context of high rates of crime and violence (Note: Europe and “welfare states”)

Soc 322 – History 11. Further, most social policy (including crime policy) benefits the "top half" at the expense of the bottom half. Top half people are organized (professional organizations), have money to influence politics, and regularly vote. So high crime rates (and other social problems) among the poor are now chronic problems in the US. Note: Labour parties in Europe

Soc History Next: A closer look at young males and street crime in the US. + Review of The London Hanged