NCJ Number
189209
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 2 Dated: Spring 2001 Pages: 236-251
Date Published
2001
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This British study used cross-national attitude data from the World Values Surveys (1981-1983, 1990) to explore whether values can "explain" crime.
Abstract
One possibility suggested by the recent literature on crime theory is that variations in "social capital" may explain crime rates. "Social capital" refers to the quality of the social networks and norms in a community that facilitates the action of individual agents and the community itself, particularly cooperative action (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1993; Halpern, 1998). "Social capital" refers to the quality of the social networks and norms in a community that facilitate the action of individual agents and the community itself, particularly cooperative actions. The most common means for measuring social capital has been through measures of social trust. Low social trust is likely to be a corollary of selfish or self-interested actions and values. This observation, together with the more generally implied relationship between social capital and social norms, suggests a link between moral values and social capital. The current study developed tests for various measures of moral values (expressed tolerance of various morally debatable acts) as causal candidates in the explanation of crime. The study examined the associations between these moral values and known covariants of crime, including age, sex, city size, and the trend over time. It also examined the relationships between values and crime at the national level by using victimization rates as the measure of crime. The potentially confounding rival causes examined were wealth, urbanization, social trust, and economic inequality. Data were obtained from the World Values Surveys for 1981-83 and 1990. Data analysis found that tolerance for a sub-group of materially self-interested attitudes were significantly higher in men, younger people, and larger cities, and had increased over time. These self-interested values were also found to be associated with victimization rates at the national level as measured by the international Crime Victimization Surveys. Multivariate models that incorporated self-interested values, economic inequality, social trust, and the interaction between these variables explained two-thirds of variance in victimization at the national level. Implications and contrast with the previous literature are discussed. 5 tables, 1 figure, and 24 references