Brian Forst - The Socio-Economics of Crime and Justice

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THE SOCIO-ECONOMICS OF CRIME AND JUSTICE

Studies in Socio-Economics

MORALITY, RATIONALITY, AND EFFICIENCY
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIO-ECONOMICS
Richard M. Coughlin, editor

SOCIO-ECONOMICS
TOWARD A NEW SYNTHESIS
Amitai Etzioni and Paul R. Lawrence, editors

INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
THEORY AND EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
Sven-Erik Sjstrand, Editor

THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF MANAGEMENT
FROM QUESNAY TO KEYNES
Pierre Guillet de Monthoux

THE SOCIO-ECONOMICS OF CRIME AND JUSTICE
Brian Forst, editor

The SocioEconomics of Crime and Justice

Editor
Brian Forst

First published 1993 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1993 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The socio-economics of crime and justice / Brian Forst, editor.
p. cm.(Studies in socio-economics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56324-074-2.ISBN 1-56324-025-4 (pbk.)
1. CrimeSocial aspectsUnited States. 2. CrimeEconomic aspectsUnited States. 3. Criminal justice, Administration ofSocial aspectsUnited States. 4. Criminal justice, Administration ofEconomic aspectsUnited States.
I. Forst, Brian.
II. Series.
HV6030.S63 1993
364.2dc20
9323797
CIP

ISBN 13: 9781563240256 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9781563240744 (hbk)

To Judith ,
my wife and best friend

Contents

Amitai Etzioni

Brian Forst

Hugo Adam Bedau

Had Phillips

Graham Hughes

Joan McCord

Darnell Hawkins

Rita Simon

Carl E. Pope

Bonnie Fisher

Jeffrey Fagan

Jackson Toby

James J. Fyfe

Brian Forst

Norval Morris

Figures

Tables

Attention to public safety is the first duty of the state. In many areas, however, the American government no longer discharges this duty effectively. The prison population, already the highest among the industrial nations, is growing, but crime has not been curbed. Criminals swing through turnstile courts; courts are overwhelmed, and the streets remain unsafe.

Behind the cops-and-robbers news about some drug dealer captured this week and the fine police work by this or that agent lies the fact that millions continue to use illegal drugs and open markets often exist for those who cater to this illicit clientele.

Moreover, in some areas public authorities seem to have abandoned any attempts to provide public safety. A typical example is the response of the police to a wave of carjacking in late 1992. Drivers were jerked out of their carsin a growing number of instances, shotand their cars taken away at gunpoint. Carjacking has been particularly scary to the citizenry because it occurs at unpredictable places and times and hence leaves people with the feeling that they are not safe any place, any time. The police response has been to tell people to lock their cars from the inside, to leave a front light on, so that when they come home they can see if anybody is lurking about, and so on, all suggestions that together amount to the messageyou are on your own; there's not much we can do to protect you.

A citizenry that feels abandoned is a dangerous sociological mix. Sooner or later some politician will be elected who promises to be "strong" against crime if he or she will just be allowed a free hand. We already have a rising chorus calling for shooting drug dealers on sight, for "suspending the constitution until the war against drugs is won," and for more vigilantism. We badly require constructive, well-thought-out, workable treatments of crime.

The social sciences have a major role to play in attending to this social need. This volume offers no quick solutions or easy answers, but it does provide some of the best social science thinking on the subject, and does so largely in a new vein, that of socio-economics.

The underlying conceptual issue here concerns the qualities of human nature and the sources of social order. Some neoclassical economists and other social scientists who share the neoclassical paradigm (for example, specialists in the fields of law and economics, public choice) have argued that criminals are not different from the rest of us, that the same people could just as easily become reliable bank tellers if their cost and revenue flows were structured differently. We are all said to be driven by self-interest, and criminals are people who find that given their circumstances crime pays better than, say, going to work. All we need to do is to change the probability of being caught and serving timein-crease the costsand criminals will desist.

Socio-economics sees, in addition, social structures that disadvantage some groups of people and isolate them from the dominant culture, failure of the educational system, and defects in the community mechanisms whose goal is to introduce the young into the prevailing values of their society and encourage adults to abide by the values of their peers.

The reader will find here an unusually rich and varied attempt to grapple with these issues, either directly by explaining the underlying assumptions about persons and society, the place of culture and institutions, or indirectly by dealing with the implication of social forces and crime, I know of no better way to broach our subject while avoiding simplistic, often dangerous solutions.

Amitai Etzioni

THE SOCIO-ECONOMICS OF CRIME AND JUSTICE

Socio-Economics, Crime, and Justice

BRIAN FORST

Is crime essentially a rational pursuit, as many have argued, or is it practiced largely out of nonrational motives? This question has more than just curiosity value. How we deal with offenders and how we go about preventing crime in the first place are matters of profound social consequence throughout the world.

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