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
1800 1850 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000
AGRI %
93
56
40
26
16
INDUS %
3
32
44
53
36
30
23
SERV %
4
12
16
21
48
66
75
* Patterns *
4
2
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
Business/Professional class
Stable Working Class
Unstable Working class
The Poor
1%
10%
30%
40%
20%
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 322 - History
Next:
A closer look at young males and street
crime in the US.
+ Review of The London Hanged