NCJ Number
103104
Date Published
1987
Length
443 pages
Annotation
This book draws on the Nation's current demographic trends, shifts in economics, religion, technology, education, and the legal system to predict patterns that crime, criminals, and crime-fighting techniques will follow in the next 20 to 50 years.
Abstract
Arguing that crimes are defined relative to the climate of the time, the author terms each major displacement in present patterns a crimewarp. Her predictions are organized around six crimewarps which represent major social transformations. First, traditional criminals -- young, male, poor, and uneducated -- will be increasingly displaced by older, more upscale offenders. Second, crime will become freer of geography, with less crime occurring at the neighborhood level and shifting from the Northeast to the Sunbelt and into rural areas. Third, street crimes will decrease in relation to more impersonal, far-reaching white-collar crimes. In the fourth crimewarp, some consensual crimes like drug abuse, homosexuality, prostitution, and gambling will be legalized. Fifth, long entrenched crime-fighting strategies will be displaced by leaner, more focused, and less personal tactics. These include computers and listening devices, reduced reliance on police due to self-help, security hardware, and private police, and crime-proof building designs. Finally, the effort to stem crime and its underlying moral anarchy will displace some civil rights. References.