Reexamining political economy and crime and explaining the crime drop

Abstract

Critical criminologists have ignored the crime drop, and have failed to undertake efforts to explain this phenomenon. As a result, explanations of the crime drop are entirely explored from an orthodox criminological position, and have made rare reference to economic factors as explanatory variables related to the crime drop. The present article addresses that deficiency by exploring advances in political economic explanation of trends in the US economy, and relating those trends to the long-term (1950–2007) crime trend, and the shorter-term crime drop era (1992-present). The decline of manufacturing, the rise of the service sector, and the transition from Fordist, liberal political economic conditions to Post-Fordist, neoliberal political economic conditions are employed to explore their potential impact on the rate of crime.

Keywords:

• radical criminology
• crime drop
• political economy of crime