NCJ Number
99944
Date Published
1985
Length
194 pages
Annotation
This analysis of crime in the Brazilian State of Pernambuco during the late 19th century and early 20th century emphasizes the relationship between local patterns of crime and social control and the State's dependent position in the international world economic system.
Abstract
Combining the dependency approach to a society's development with Marxian theories focusing on crime and social control as part of the history and workers' struggles, the author traces the fluctuations in crime over time, with emphasis on the 60 years after 1860. The sugar plantation economy and its dependency on the slave labor imported until 1850 are described. The planters' desire, during the transition from slave to free labor, to force squatters into some substitute for slavery to ensure low-cost labor is analyzed in terms of the growing role of the State in solving labor problems. The use of repressive criminal law, especially through the arrests of squatters for the new crime of social disorder, is described. The role of advances in sugar mill technology later in the century and the increased arrests for theft among the population displaced by technological advances are also examined. The disproportionate impacts of the technological and economic changes on women and blacks are noted. Problems in data collection and implications for studies of crime in developing nations are also discussed. Tables, an index, 156 references, and appendixes discussing sources and presenting additional crime information are included. (Publisher summary modified)