NCJ Number
110907
Date Published
1986
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This paper examines socioeconomic and systemic changes in Australia and the implications these may have for crime and the criminal justice system.
Abstract
The expansion of the dominance of transnational corporations and the attendant restructuring of the Australian economy brings new opportunities for corporate crime and for crime against corporations, the latter often involving computer-related offenses. The citizenry will increasingly need protection from potentially hazardous or harmful acts of corporate bodies, including governmental agencies. There will be a new youth marginality in Australian society as there are fewer unskilled positions available in a postindustrial society. This is likely to produce new frustrations for juveniles and make them vulnerable to deviant behaviors. Growing demands on the criminal justice system attended by rising costs will create pressure on the criminal and juvenile justice systems to divest themselves of some of their traditional responsibilities. This may occur through the general strategies of decriminalization, diversion, and deinstitutionalization. Gaps in social control that may result from this divestiture may be filled with other forms of social control, however. There has been a trend toward the privatization of various aspects of social control in the rapid growth of private security firms and the increase in private institutions which address deviant behavior, particularly by juveniles. 63 footnotes.