NCJ Number
152849
Journal
Studies on Crime and Crime Prevention Volume: 3 Dated: (1994) Pages: 7-23
Date Published
1994
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Assumed inefficiency in government approaches to reducing social inequality frequently justifies U.S. policies that divert investment from declining communities and disadvantaged families and individuals.
Abstract
The new American sociology of crime and inequality implicitly, and often explicitly, challenges this assumption by exposing criminal costs of extreme inequality, particularly when inequality involves residential segregation and concentrations of poverty associated with race. A central theme of the new sociology approach suggests that capital disinvestment from distressed minority communities encourages subcultural adaptations that can be understood as forms of recapitalization. The author articulates the role of social and other forms of capital in a crime creation process that is increasingly disruptive and dangerous to distressed communities and individuals who live in them. 69 references