The New Myth of Class and Crime

Abstract

On the basis of a reanalysis of the empirical evidence. Tittle et al. (1978) concluded that the presumed inverse relationship between class and crime is a myth. We discuss six problems in their evaluation: paucity of evidence; lack of specification of theoretical relationships; faulty specification and measures of class; inadequate operational definitions of “crime”; faulty analysis of evidence; and failure to examine all evidence. We conclude that the empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that low class position is a source of serious crimes against persons and property.

Structure and control: Reconsidering Hirschi's concept of commitment

“…These acts, when detected, are thought to result in punishment of the person committing them by agents of the larger society. Thus, the official crime rates of the underclass are high in comparison to the rates of corporate and business executives (e.g., Clelland and Carter 1980;Elliott and Ageton 1981;Gold 1966 where the high crime rates would be explained by low commitment.…”

Class and self-reported juvenile delinquency: Evidence from Turkey

“…First, as some authors claimed (Axenroth, 1983;Braithwaite, 1981;Clelland & Carter, 1980), there were few studies on the relationship between class and delinquency in developing countries, like Turkey. Related to this, in the measurement of social class, instead of using a general index of socioeconomic status, as Triplett and Jarjoura (1997) argued, employing various dimensions of social class were preferred and would be more beneficial so as to see the different impacts of the elements of social class.…”

Cross-National Variation in Socioeconomic Status and Delinquency: A Comparative Study of Adolescents from 26 European Countries

“…Dominated by studies from the United States, much of the literature on class differences in criminal offending has progressed as a series of attempts to establish a meaningful association between socioeconomic status (SES) and delinquency (Braithwaite 1981;Dunaway et al 2000;Clelland andCarter 1980, Tittle, Villemez, andSmith 1978). After decades of debate, research seems to have settled on the conclusion that an inverse association tends to materialize in studies that include theoretically appropriate measures of severe and persistent forms of socioeconomic disadvantage (Ellis and McDonald 2001;Farnworth et al 1994).…”