How did Thatcher’s Social
and Economic Agenda
Shape Justice in England
and Wales?
Stephen Farrall (CCR, Sheffield Univ).
14th May 2015
UCL Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London,
Co-organised with the Howard League for Penal Reform
Outlining this evening’s talk
• Project motivations.
• Outlining our framework (and ‘dependent
variable’)
• How were crime rates related to
Thatcherite social and economic policies?
• What happened when crime rates rose?
• Towards a conclusion …
Great Theories, But …
• Little reference to specific policies or
political administrations.
• “Rather too top down” (Loader & Sparks,
2004:17); insufficiently “anchored in
politics”, (Feeley, 2003:117).
• ‘Late modernity’ too vague (implies a
periodisation of process which may not yet
be complete).
Great Theories, But …
• Focus on middle class – little mention of
working class.
• Pushing into the background the role of
specific social and political actors.
• Lack of rigorous empirical assessment.
Our Approach:
Drawing on Historical Institutionalism
• Concerned with illuminating how institutions and institutional settings
mediate the ways in which processes unfold over time. (Thelen and
Steinmo, 1992: 2)
• Institutions do not simply ‘channel’ policies; they help to define policy
concerns, create the ‘objects’ of policy and shape the nature of the
interests in policies which actors may have.
• Attempts to understand how political and policy processes
and relationships play out over time coupled with an
appreciation that prior events, procedures and processes
will have consequences for subsequent events.
• Politics does not simply create policies
policies also create politics
What are the main
concepts within HI?
• Path Dependencies: what happened at an earlier point
will affect what can happen later. Reversal costs are high
and institutional arrangements hard to completely ‘undo’.
Policy concerns and interests become constructed within
parameters.
• The speed of causal processes and outcomes: there are
both fast- and slow-moving causal processes and
outcomes (cumulative, threshold and chain causal
processes). This radically alters the time-frames of our
explanations; takes criminologists away from what Paul
Rock has called ‘chronocentricism’.
What are the main
concepts within HI?
• Critical junctures: those rare and relatively short-lived
periods when institutional arrangements are placed on a
particular path. During these periods actors may be able
to produce significant change.
• Punctuated equilibrium: long-run stability in policymaking is subject to occasional seismic shifts when
existing institutions and issue definitions break down and
pressure for change accumulates to the point where is
cannot be ignored.
… and what are the
problems with it?
• ideas also matter too (not just institutions), so does HI
underplay the importance of actors, perhaps?:
• too much focus on reproduction of institutions? (similar
to critiques of theories of structuration);
• focus on political elites (little about the populous);
• important to remember that not all institutions will be
changed, adapted or maintained and that the speeds of
change may be variable too.
• Paper available on request.
Figure 1: Property Crime Per Capita (Home
Office Recorded Statistics and BCS)
Which policies are we most
interested in?
• Economic policies
• Housing policies
• Social security
(esp. after 1986)
• Education policies
(esp. after 1988)
Economic Changes
• During the 1970s there was a move away
from the commitment to Keynesian
policies and full employment.
• Dramatic economic restructuring overseen
by Thatcher governments.
• Consequently, levels of unemployment
rose through the 1980s (see Fig 2).
Figure 2: Unemployment Rate (%), 1970-2006
Economic Changes
This in turn led to
increases in levels
of inequality
(Figure 3),
augmented by
changes in taxation
policies which
favoured the better
off.
Figure 3: Income Inequality
(Gini coefficient), 1970-2006
The Economy and Crime in
Post-War Britain
• Using time series analyses for 1961-2006
Jennings et al (2012) find statistically
significant relationships for:
1: the unemployment rate on the rate of property crime
(consistent with other studies),
2: we also find that the crime-economy link
strengthened during this period.
3: (economic inequality just outside bounds of
significance).
Housing Policy
• 1980 Housing Act (+ others): created RTB
– saw a huge rise in owner-occupation.
• Created residualisation of council housing;
transient/marginalised residents with low
levels of employment (Murie, 1997).
Housing Residualisation
1982*
1984
1988** 1992***
1994
1996^
1998
A: Unemployment
BCS owners
3
3
3
4
4
2
2
BCS social renters
7
9
10
11
10
7
6
BSAS owners
40
41
34
40
39
42
33
BSAS social renters
70
70
76
76
74
81
74
BCS owners
-
2
1
2
1
-
-
BCS social renters
-
8
9
10
8
-
-
BCS owners
7
7
-
-
6
6
7
BCS social renters
9
9
-
-
13
12
12
B: Low income
C: Adjacent to rundown stock
D: High Turnover areas
Impact on Domestic Property
Crime I (pre-RTB)
GHS data (ever in past yr)
1972
1973
1980
Owners
2
2
2
Renters
3
3
3
GHS data (N in past yr)
1972
Owners (mean)
.0219
.02
.02
Social renters (mean)
.0395
.04
.04
Mean difference
.0175
.018
.018
***
**
**
Sig
1973
1980
Impact on Domestic Property
Crime II (post-RTB)
BCS (ever in past yr)
1982
Owners
Social renters
BCS (N in pt yr)
1982
1984
1988
1992
1994
1996
1998
8
8
9
9
11
10
9
11
10
11
13
12
12
11
1984
1988
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
Owners (mean)
.1298 .1385 .1383 .1387 .1724 .1483 .1473 .1198
Soc rent (mean)
.2190 .1909 .2421 .2421 .3180 .3412 .3144
Mean difference
.0891 .0573 .1037 .1034 .1455 .1928 .1670 .1685
Sig
***
**
**
***
***
***
**
.288
**
Impact on Domestic Property
Crime
• Complex initial situation of course (see
Baldwin and Bottoms, 1976), however
RTB contributed to concentration of social
and economic need.
• Also to the concentration of crime (paper
available on request).
Social Security
• 1980-1985: Some tinkering with the
DHSS.
• 1986 Social Security Act based on Fowler
Review.
• Following this payments reduced for many
individual benefits claimants (whilst total
spend increased due to unemployment).
Social Security
• Evidence to suggest that reductions in
government expenditure are associated
with rises in crime during the 1980s (Reilly
and Witt, 1992).
• Jennings et al (2012) suggest that
increases in welfare spending is
associated with declines in the property
crime rate.
Education
• Changes in education policies encouraged
schools to exclude children in order to
improve place in league tables.
• Exclusions rose during the 1990s,
reaching a peak of 12,668 in 1996-97.
Education
• Dumped on the streets this fuelled ASB
(Home Office RDS Occ. Paper No. 71).
• The BCS 1992-2006 shows sudden jump of
people reporting “teens hanging around” to
be a problem from an average of 8% before
2001 to 30% after 2002.
• School exclusions helped to create
Labour’s discourse of ASB and need for
C&DA 1998.
British Crime Survey ASB items
Anti-Social Behaviour (Common Problems)
4
Mean
3.5
3
2.5
2
1983
1988
1993
Noisy Neighbours
Rubbish
Abandoned Cars
1998
Year
Vandals
Drunks
2003
2008
2013
Teens Hanging Around
Race Attack
A ‘Social Storm’ of
Harm?
A dynamic factor analysis (1982-2007) of
these data:
• Retail Price Index
• Unemployment rate
• Gini
• Divorce, Suicide and Abortion rates
• Housing Repossessions
• Children taken into care
A ‘Social Storm’ of
Harm?
Is positively associated with BCS data for …
• The N of ALL crimes
• The N of property crimes
• The N of violent crimes
• The N of victims
• The N of property victims
• The N of violence victims
What happened to crime (etc)?
• Rise in crime (Fig 5). This was generally rising
before 1979, but the rate of increase picked up
after early 1980s and again in early 1990s.
• Fear of crime rises (tracks crime rates, Fig 6).
• People want to see an increase in spending on
the police/prisons (with decrease of spending on
social security, Fig 7).
Figure 5: Property Crime Per Capita (Home
Office Recorded Statistics and BCS)
Figure 6: Percentage worried about
crime (BCS 1982-2005)
Fig 7: Priorities for extra spending
(social security vs. police) BSAS 1983-2009
Developments post-1993:
• Howard (Home Sec 1993-97) talks tough on crime.
• Prison population rises immediately (Newburn 2007).
• Rise in average sentences: Riddell 1989:170;
Newburn 2007:442-4.
• Trend continued, appears due to tough sentences
and stricter enforcement. MoJ 2009: 2-3 cites
mandatory minimum sentences (aimed at burglars
and drug traffickers) as a cause.
• Prison population grew by 2.5% p.a. from 1945 to
1995, but by 3.8% p.a. 1995-2009 (MoJ, 2009: 4).
Increasing Imprisonment
Prison Popn 1970-2013
1970
1980
1990
year
2000
2010
Average Prison Popn (Key years):
1970: 39028
1979: 42220
1993: 44552
1994: 48621
2013: 84249
Temporality of Thatcherite
Policy Spillover
Labour Party’s Response
• Move to the political right.
• ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of
crime’.
• Focus on ‘young offenders’ (Sch
Exclusions related to?).
• Did not oppose Crime (Sentences) Act
1997 despite it being quite draconian (‘3
strikes’, minimum mandatory sentences).
Labour In Government
Needed to do something about crime
because …
a) it actually was a problem (peak was in
1994) but still a source of public concern
b) they needed to be seen to be doing
something to avoid being accused of having
‘gone soft on crime again’.
What have Govts done?
What have Govts done?
• They devote more time to crime in it’s
expressed policy agenda (Fig 9).
• Little sustained interest in crime until 60s
(2%).
• After 1979 GE rises to 8%.
• Big jump again in 1996 (15%).
• Thereafter runs at or near to 20%.
Figure 9: Proportion of attention to law and crime in
Queen’s Speech (from policyagendas.org)
Modelling what Govts
have done
• Farrall and Jennings (2012) report
statistically significant relationships for:
1: national crime rate on Govt attention on
crime in Queen’s Speeches, and,
2: effects of public opinion on Govt. attention
on crime in Queen’s Speeches.
• So the Govt responds to crime rates and
expressions of public concern about crime.
Towards a Conclusion
• Thatcherism was a mix of both neo-liberal
and neo-conservative instincts.
• Changes which were driven by neo-liberal
instincts (housing, employment, social
security and education) led to rises in crime.
• Rises in crime ‘provoked’ a neo-conservative
set of responses to crime (‘tougher’ prison
sentences).
Towards a Conclusion
• Thatcher’s legacy for crime and the criminal
justice system has been the following:
1. Crime rise in 1980s-1990s.
2. New ‘consensus’ on responses to crime.
3. CJS now geared up for high volume crime
(but crime rates falling).
• Causes of crime (therefore of justice)
extremely complex and intertwined with other
social policy arena.
Outline of current work
ESRC grant :
• Analyses of BCS, BSAS, GHS, BES + national level data.
Data sets to be made available autumn 2015.
• 40min documentary film “Generation Right” (Doc Fest 7th
June 2015)
• http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/law/research/projects/crimetrajectories
• E-newsletter/Working Papers (s.farrall@sheffield.ac.uk)
• Twittering: @Thatcher_legacy