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Congruence Testing

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Re-Examining The Crime Drop

Part of the book series: Critical Criminological Perspectives ((CCRP))

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Abstract

This chapter takes the ideas developed by historical institutionalists and constructivists and applies them to four further countries in order to assess the extent to which New Right thinking and social and economic policies may have had an impact on both crime rates and the responses to these in Australia, the USA, New Zealand and Sweden. Each case study starts by outlining New Right policies in that country followed by a discussion of criminal justice policies and responses to rising property crime rates. Although not conclusive, the case studies suggest that for the four countries explored, rises in property crime followed New Right government policies, and decreases were associated with ‘get tough’ messages of crime.

Why have the offence amplification processes described in the preceding paragraphs occurred later in the Scandinavian (and some other European) countries than in the English-speaking countries? Tonry (2014: 45)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    That said, there were also strong social democratic resonances which mitigated some of the harsher impact of New Right policies in the 1980s and 1990s in Australia . See Hogg and Brown (1998: 160–165).

  2. 2.

    In 1993, the unemployment rate rose to over 11%.

  3. 3.

    Although the data presented relate only to domestic burglary rates, data for robbery , non-domestic burglaries, motor vehicle theft, larceny and fraud show similar trends. The source of the data is Table 1 from 14, and so is truncated to 1991–1992.

  4. 4.

    In order to fully assess the impact of various social and economic policies on crime, and law enforcement agencies’ responses to these, one would need to explore these processes at US state level, which is beyond the confines of this short book.

  5. 5.

    With one exception, GDP in New Zealand declined faster between 1985 and 1992 than for any other seven year period during the post-war period Easton and Gerritsen (1996: 42).

  6. 6.

    Von Hofer and Tham (2000: 197) report that theft peaked in 1985, slightly ahead of all property crimes.

  7. 7.

    Von Hofer and Tham (1989) find no relationship between theft and risk of imprisonment. However, their paper is somewhat limited in that the period covered ends in 1985.

  8. 8.

    Eisner (2016) points to similar weaknesses with the evidence surrounding early intervention programmes.

  9. 9.

    The rise of cognitive behavioural programmes may also be allied to this trend, as social work models in probation supervision became discredited rhetorically (by the Thatcher governments, see Farrall 2006) and empirically (see Martinson 1974).

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  1. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Stephen Farrall

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Farrall, S. (2017). Congruence Testing. In: Re-Examining The Crime Drop. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67654-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67654-8_5

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