Crime

It seems we cannot watch the local news without being confronted by some senseless act of random violence. A young child is killed in the crossfire of a gangland drug war. A number of people die, and others are seriously injured, when a lone gunman goes on a shooting rampage in a fast-food restaurant. A serial rapist strikes again. Is violent crime out of control in American society? Can such acts be explained, and if so, how? Is the public concern about crime justified or exaggerated? How can crime be controlled?

Extent and Cost of Crime

Based on police reports, the FBI estimates that about 14 million crimes in eight major categories were committed in 1993, over 85 percent of which were nonviolent. This amounts to about six crimes per 100 persons, up only slightly since 1975 after increasing almost threefold between 1960 and 1975. National surveys of crime victims suggest that the actual crime rate is about twice that recorded by the FBI. This would mean that the average person becomes a crime victim about once every eight years.

There are about 25,000 murders annually in the United States, and contrary to popular conceptions shaped by the media, the overall murder rate has increased only modestly in recent years. In 1991 almost twice as many persons died from traffic accidents as from murder. The lifetime probability that you or I will be a murder victim is less than 1 percent.

Other statistics on violent crime give more cause for concern. The United States has the highest murder rate among industrialized countries, about four times the average. Violence is most prevalent among persons 15-25 years old, and a new “baby boomlet” generation promises to increase the ranks of this age category in the near future. Other forms of violent crime continue to be on the rise.

Estimates of the cost of crime vary widely, depending on what kinds of losses are considered. For example, estimates of the recent annual cost of personal street crime range from $17 billion by the FBI to over $90 billion when such things as medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering are taken into account (Conklin, p. 77). The costs of more sophisticated types of crime seem to run considerably higher. Estimates related to various white-collar crimes, including embezzlement, fraud, antitrust violations and environmental pollution, range from $50 billion to over $200 billion annually. A similar range of estimates is available for the cost of various so-called victimless crimes, such as illicit drug use, illegal gambling and prostitution. Some estimates indicate that the cost of income-tax evasion by individual taxpayers may easily run in excess of $100 billion. The cost of running the criminal justice system at all levels exceeded $50 billion in the mid-1980s.

These estimates of prevalence and cost have some interesting implications. When the violent element of street crime is removed, the public seems to be more disturbed about personal property crime, such as burglary and auto theft, than about the much more expensive “crime in the suites,” whose cost is hidden in higher taxes and the prices we all pay for goods and services in the marketplace. Moreover, as tragic as 25,000 murders a year may be, this statistic is dwarfed simply by the mayhem we commit on our highways. Yet we seem to want more capital punishment but higher speed limits. Our wants suggest the need for a better understanding of the problem we seem to fear so much.

Understanding Crime

The most popular explanations of crime seem to focus on the individual offender. Some hereditary factor, some type of psychological disturbance or some internalized tendency to respond to environmental rewards is seen as the major factor underlying the so-called criminal personality. Though I grant that some of these explanations have merit, they usually provide little hope for altering the behavior of criminal offenders. We do not yet possess adequate knowledge to alter a person’s basic biological makeup. Psychological therapy is typically very expensive, and success rates are problematic. Reward or reinforcement theories may operate well in highly controlled environments like prisons but are impossible to implement fully in the broader context of a free society.

The appeal of most of these theories seems to lie in the assumption that the causes of crime are located within the individual offender. This gives the rest of us license to absolve ourselves from any responsibility for the crime problem and to support get-tough policies that offer illusory quick fixes.

Theories that rely on significant features of the social environment to explain crime offer more adequate explanations, especially for those crimes whose incidence varies considerably from society to society. One of these, known as strain theory, proposes that crime rates will be high in a society that instills strong aspirations of success in its members but does not provide adequate means for the attainment of these goals on the part of large segments of its population (Merton, pp. 185-214). Those who cannot achieve legitimately will be highly tempted to rely on illegitimate means, such as crime. One version of this theory, known as relative deprivation theory, contends that crime rates will be especially high in poor inner-city areas that are in close proximity to extremely affluent areas. When the poor in these areas are confronted with their deprivation on a daily basis, they become increasingly frustrated and hostile. A collective sense of injustice develops, which tends to direct the frustration into various forms of profitable crime, such as drug trafficking, and the hostility into various types of violence.

Control theory also considers the impact of the social environment, using the concept of an individual’s bonds to society. Crime is more likely to occur when these bonds are weak, for then crime is usually a more efficient way to achieve one’s ends. T. Hirschi identifies four major elements of the social bond as attachment to others, commitment to conventional pursuits, involvement in conventional activities and belief in the validity of moral rules. By making effective use of these bonds, a society can effectively keep crime under control. Typically this involves using multiple control mechanisms so that if one bond fails, other bonds can take up the slack. For example, an adolescent who is doing well in school and sees the possibility of a bright future is unlikely to become seriously delinquent even if he or she has conflicts with parents.

Finally, cultural transmission theory is based on the thesis that criminal behavior is learned as people absorb cultural definitions (norms, values, attitudes, etc.) that are favorable to crime from others with whom they identify. D. Cressey contends that imprisonment is an ineffective way to reform criminals because it puts a person in intimate contact with others who reinforce attitudes favorable to crime. An alternative would be to relocate the person into a group that upholds anticriminal values. Cressey is simply proposing that efforts at criminal reform would be much more effective if groups for criminals existed that functioned in a manner similar to the way Alcoholics Anonymous does for alcoholics. Unfortunately, such groups are few and far between.

Controlling Crime

Criminal justice has been one of our most innovative social institutions. One recent effort at crime control is based on a study by M. Wolfgang and associates, who studied arrest records of roughly 10,000 males born in Philadelphia in 1945. Seventy percent of serious felonies were attributed to only 6 percent of the sample. This has inspired some law enforcement agencies to develop repeat-offender programs that target chronic offenders for surveillance, apprehension and conviction using special police units. This effort may be accompanied by habitual-offender laws that allow life sentences to be given to repeat offenders (“three strikes and you’re in”).

Supporters of these programs contend that their slightly higher costs result in a significant drop in the crime rate as the most chronic offenders are incapacitated for long periods. Others argue that the sting operations that often accompany chronic-offender programs actually increase crime rates by providing more outlets for stolen or illegal goods. There are also dangers in habitual-offender laws. In particular, they are sometimes applied to amateur criminals who commit a series of minor offenses. Whether such potential injustices can be minimized by fine-tuning the programs is a matter of much debate.

Another recent development involves efforts to revive the biblical concept of restitution. C. Colson and D. Benson contend that under our traditional justice system victims are doubly exploited—first by the criminal offender and second by the additional tax burden that finances expensive correctional programs. Restitution reduces this burden by requiring the offender to compensate the victim for losses. Compensated victims will in turn be more supportive of social policies designed to help offenders reintegrate into the community. Ideally, offenders will identify with their victims’ losses as they suffer a similar loss through providing compensation. If restitution can accomplish these ends, reconciliation between victim and offender, perhaps even between offender and society, might eventually be possible.

Though restitution has a number of advantages, it is difficult to implement because of the low level of job skills and high unemployment rates among the vast majority of offenders. Given these limitations, the use of restitution and other similar innovations (for example, work release) is not likely to increase significantly until more fundamental changes occur in our economic system.

In general, sociological theories suggest that prospects for reducing the overall crime rate through alterations limited to criminal justice itself are meager. Crime seems to be primarily a product of at least three trends:

1. The importance of materialism in a period when differentials in wealth and income seem to be increasing. Youth from economically disadvantaged families typically lack opportunities to acquire the educational skills needed to compete successfully in the job market. Thus poverty is easily transferred from one generation to the next.

2. The decreased effectiveness of traditional agents of social control. An increasing breakdown of family life and the transient character of most urban areas are weakening major bonds of attachment that serve to deter crime.

3. A growing emphasis on value pluralism that threatens the moral climate necessary for a free society. Key institutions, such as education and the media, fail to take responsibility for promoting such a climate in the name of “value neutrality” and “adult realism.”

It is easy to become pessimistic concerning the prospects for crime control when we consider what would be required to reverse such trends. We might, for example, try to deemphasize affluence as a social value so that deprivations felt by the poorer segments of American society would be less extreme. However, this is a difficult task at best given an economic system whose well-being is dependent on a continually expanding market. Any realistic efforts to deemphasize materialism, such as controls on media advertising, would meet strong opposition from the “powers” of our age (Ephes. 6:12).

Still, there are many ways to ameliorate the crime problem. Families need to create stronger bonds of attachment with children as the basis for consistent, loving discipline. Churches can increase their efforts to strengthen and support the family by providing affordable daycare centers for single working mothers along with various youth activities that emphasize values as well as recreation. Corporations can indirectly support the family by allowing workers more options with regard to part-time employment, family leave and telecommuting. They can also promote employment policies that do not discriminate against ex-offenders.

In general, American society needs to strike a better balance between punishment for criminal offenders and their reintegration into the community. While Scripture recognizes a need for punishment in order to control human lawlessness (1 Peter 2:14), it also recognizes the need to forgive and restore the penitent (Luke 17:3-4; 2 Cor. 2:5-10; Galatians 6:1). For all our talk about being “too soft on crime,” in the final analysis our major problem may be that we are not soft enough. Certainly the message of the cross assures us that God’s program for human redemption is designed not to condemn but to reconcile and restore (Luke 1:49-55; Hebrews 12:5-11). Out of thanksgiving for our own redemption, and guided by a faith that this promise will one day be fulfilled, let us seek to become instruments through which the vision can begin to become a present reality.

» See also: Drugs

» See also: Justice

» See also: Law

» See also: Law Enforcement

» See also: Poverty

» See also: Unemployment

References and Resources

C. Colson and D. Benson, “Restitution as an Alternative to Imprisonment,” Detroit College of Law Review 6 (1980) 523-98; J. Conklin, Criminology (5th ed.; Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1995); D. Cressey, “Changing Criminals: The Application of the Theory of Differential Association,” American Journal of Sociology 61 (1955) 116-20; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 1993: Uniform Crime Reports (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing House, 1994); T. Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); R. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (enl. ed.; New York: Free Press, 1968); M. Wolfgang et al., Delinquency in a Birth Cohort (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).

—Donald Gray