THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIMINALITY: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE.
Thirty-five studies examining the relationship between social class and crime/delinquency are reduced to comparable statistics using instances where the relationship was studied for specific categories of age. sex, race, place of residence, data type, or offense as units of analysis. The findings fr...
| Published in: | American Sociological Review Vol. 43; no. 5; pp. 643 - 657 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Sage Publications Inc.
Oct78
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=14741299&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 14741299 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00031224 ASC jtl: American Sociological Review issn: 00031224 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Oct78 vid: 43 iid: 5 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 14741299 10.2307/2094541 ppf: 643 ppct: 14 formats: tig: atl: THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIMINALITY: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. aug: au: Tittle, Charles R. Villemez, Wayne J. Smith, Douglas A. affil: Florida Atlantic University. University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. Indiana University. su: Social classes Criminology Mathematics Associations, institutions, etc. Cybernetics Crime sug: subj: Social classes Criminology Mathematics Associations, institutions, etc. Cybernetics Crime ab: Thirty-five studies examining the relationship between social class and crime/delinquency are reduced to comparable statistics using instances where the relationship was studied for specific categories of age. sex, race, place of residence, data type, or offense as units of analysis. The findings from 363 instances are summarized and patterns are identified. The overall results show only a slight negative relationship between class and criminality, with self-report studies reflecting lower associations than official statistics studies. Moreover, analysis demonstrates a clear historical decline in magnitude of association to the point where both self-report and official statistics studies done in the current decade find no class variation. This historical trend is shown to be due to changes in the findings from studies using official statistics as indicators of criminality. Alternative interpretations are discussed. but all lead to serious doubts about the adequacy of theories of deviance that contain assumptions of class differences. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 1978 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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