NCJ Number
224318
Date Published
2008
Length
253 pages
Annotation
This book explores the connections between the decline in support for welfarism in high-crime cultures (with attention to Great Britain), the emergence of “de-civilizing” tendencies through social exclusionary policies, and the problem of delinquency and antisocial behavior.
Abstract
The decline in public support for the welfare state over the past 30 years has meant that the public does not support state intervention in society in order to alter social and economic structures for the purpose of addressing the worst excesses of disadvantage in order to create a more equal and just society. Contemporary Western societies have concluded that matters of social justice and economic inequality are best addressed through the unrestricted workings of the marketplace. Under this view, the state’s responsibility is primarily to ensure conditions in which markets can flourish in an uninhibited way. Crime and disorder under such a system are viewed as stemming less from a flawed economic and social structure that must be regulated by government intervention, but rather due to problem populations that must be controlled by criminal laws enforced through the criminal justice system. A key argument of this book is that the current concerns about antisocial behavior and what should and can be done about it are fundamentally about the changing nature of social solidarity in modern society. Throughout the book, the author argues that in order to understand antisocial behavior and the social policy response to it, society and its governing institutions must resist the inclination to view incivility as the product of deviant or pathological individuals. The author advises in the concluding chapter that in the context of present-day economic uncertainty and community disintegration in major cities, there may need to be a broad recognition that taxes and redistributive polices must be given priority as a legitimate subject for debate. 413 references and a subject index