Kotzé - The myth of the crime decline : exploring change and continuity in crime and harm

Kotz theoretically and rigorously skewers the myth of the crime decline as a baseless assertion built on insufficient data. In doing so he punctures liberal, dream-like notions of better angels of our nature exercising some mystical and ameliorating influence on the harm that is still so catastrophically caused by our underlying social and economic system and the toxic subjectivity that it creates. Beautifully written and intellectually challenging, it also serves to remind every Criminologist of the debt that we now and will continue to owe to Ultra Realism for re-invigorating a discipline that was theoretically atrophied.

Professor Emeritus David Wilson, Centre for Applied Criminology, Birmingham City University

Justin Kotz does what few criminologists are willing to do these days. He pushes past the cloying sensitivities of contemporary social science to offer an admirably honest account of the genuine problems that continue to blight our most impoverished and disorderly boroughs he carefully and convincingly dismantles the crime decline narrative. Compelling stuff.

Professor Simon Winlow, Northumbria University

In The Myth of the Crime Decline, Justin Kotz carefully unpicks one of the predominant narratives of mainstream criminology. Using cutting edge social theory and original data, this book demands that we move beyond positivism or constructionism as explanatory frameworks for our contemporary condition and examine the complexity of a criminological reality that is far from static. Kotz draws us into a rapidly changing criminological landscape, illustrating how adaptive and new forms of crime are facilitated by technological advances, rendering the creaking mechanisms of crime surveys and many categories of crime and deviance obsolete. Beneath the statistical radar, and against a backdrop of socioeconomic precarity, these new forms of criminality are often entrepreneurial, ruthless and effective, resulting in a range of invisible and unmeasured harms. This book is essential reading, and an antidote to the orthodoxy of optimism that has paralysed the social sciences in recent years.

Dr Oliver Smith, Reader in Criminology, Plymouth University

The Myth of the Crime Decline seeks to critically interrogate the supposed statistical decline of crime rates, thought to have occurred in a number of predominantly Western countries over the past two decades. Whilst this trend of declining crime rates seems profound, serious questions need to be asked. Data sources need to be critically interrogated, and context needs to be provided. This book seeks to do just that.

This book examines the wider socio-economic and politico-cultural context within which this decline in crime is said to have occurred, highlighting the changing nature and landscape of crime and its ever deepening resistance to precise measurement. By drawing upon original qualitative research and cutting-edge criminological theory, this book offers an alternative view of the reality of crime and harm. In doing so it seeks to reframe the crime decline discourse and provide a more accurate account of this puzzling contemporary phenomenon. Additionally, utilising a new theoretical framework developed by the author, this book begins to explain why the crime decline discourse has been so readily accepted.

Written in an accessible yet theoretical and informed manner, this book is a must-read for academics and students in the fields of criminology, sociology, social policy and the philosophy of social sciences.

Justin Kotz is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Teesside University. He was awarded his PhD in 2016 and has previously published work in the fields of ex-prisoner reintegration and the historical sublimation of violence. Justin is the co-editor of Zemiology: Reconnecting Crime and Social Harm (2018).

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First published 2019

by Routledge

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2019 Justin Kotz

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kotz, Justin, author.

Title: The myth of the crime decline : exploring change and continuity in crime and harm / Justin Kotz.

Description: 1 Edition. | New York: Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018058387 | ISBN 9780815353935 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351134590 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Crime. | Crime prevention.

Classification: LCC HV6025.K68 2019 | DDC 364.1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058387

ISBN: 978-0-8153-5393-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-13459-0 (ebk)

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The book is dedicated to my mother and late father, Gill and Andr Kotz.

In many ways this is one of the more challenging sections to write. Where does one begin in trying to acknowledge and show appreciation for all the wisdom, guidance and support received by so many along the way? I have been incredibly fortunate to have benefited from the kindness and expertise of a number of past and present colleagues at Teesside University. In particular I would like to thank Steve Hall, Simon Winlow, Georgios Antonopoulos, Philip Whitehead and Anthony Lloyd for their constant encouragement and unwavering support. Their unfaltering collegiality and enthusiasm created the space for both personal and academic development, and I will be forever grateful to them for advancing my intellectual faculties. I would also like to thank Victoria Bell, Maggie Leese, Georgios Papanicolaou, Steph Scott and Louise Wattis for helping to create a working environment conducive to academic research. Special thanks must go to those who kindly agreed to take part in the research that underpins this book; your candidness and patience is deeply appreciated. Finally, thank you to my wife, Claire. Your love, encouragement and support remain my brightest guiding light, and I am forever grateful.