Survival in Economic Downturns - Some Implications for the Criminal Justice System (From Crime and Criminal Justice in a Declining Economy, P 39-50, 1981, Kevin N Wright, ed. - See NCJ-84138)

• NCJ Number: 84141
• Author(s): P B Meyer
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain Publishers, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Version of this chapter was originally presented at the American Society of Criminology Conference in Philadelphia, November 1979.

Annotation

Economic downturns tend to increase the number of persons incarcerated, thus increasing costs, while the public's willingness to be taxed decreases, forcing the criminal justice system to rely on the political support of corporate business, which will expect the preservation of privilege and private property.

Abstract

Major economic downturns, especially of a stagflation type, produce the following effects: (1) a major increase in individual criminality, born in part out of desperation and likely to be more acceptable to society as a whole than routine, traditional criminality; (2) a concurrent decrease in willingness to support government spending, especially as inflated by uncontrolled price increases; (3) an ever-widening net of white-collar and business crimes, with attendant rationales that tend to undermine the rule of law, (4) greater reliance on the principle of individual freedom as a goal to be served, resulting in a conflict between preservation of private property through adherence to this principle and an attack on private property by impoverished persons, claiming the individual freedom rationale for their acts; and (5) a heightening of social tensions and conflicts between social classes as a result, coinciding with an apparent decline in the deterrent and social control capacities of the criminal justice system as a whole, especially that of corrections. In such times, the criminal justice system survives under the protection of a powerful political interest group, most likely the corporate business sector, increasing the likelihood that 'justice' will be biased in favor of the rich and powerful while targeting for incarceration those who threaten property and monetary interests. A total of 15 notes are listed. (Author summary modified)