David Gordon

8/16/2019 David Gordon

1/8

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Crime & Delinquency

DOI: 10.1177/0011128773019002041973; 19; 163Crime Delinquency

David M. GordonCapitalism, Class, and Crime in America

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Capitalism, Class, andCrime in America*

DAVID M. GORDON

Research Associate, Center for Educational Policy Research, Harvard UniversityResearch Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1971-72

B.A., 1965, Harvard College; Ph.D. (Economics), 1971, Harvard University

Conventional public analyses ofcrime, both conservative and

liberal, begin with the assumption that crimes are committed byirrational individuals who constitute a threat to a rational social

order. Sharing that initial assumption, conservatives and liberalsdiverge in their policy approaches to deterring criminality. Somerecent orthodox economic analyses ofcrime, having begun to re-lax the assumption, view crime as a process ofrational choice bycriminals; they offer the possibility of"optimal" crime preven-tion policies through the application ofconventional economicmodels.

A radical economic analysis of crime, which this paper tries to

formulate, suggests that the present character ofcrime in Amer-ica flows almost

inevitablyfrom the structure of our social and

economic institutions. Many kinds ofcrime represent perfectlyrational responses to the conditions ofcompetition and inequal-ity fostered in capitalism; examples of this rationality are white-collar crime, organized crime, and ghetto crime. Many of themost important differences among crimes flow from the duality ofour systems of justice and law enforcement, and that duality inturn reflects the biases of the State in capitalist societies. It seems

unlikely that we shall be able to solve the problem of crime inthis country without first effecting a radical redistribution of

power inour

basic institutions.

IKE A BRUSH FIRE, crime in the

L United States has seemed recentlyto be raging out of control. The pub-lic, the government, and the expertshave all raced to cool the blaze.In one way or another, we have

all been drawn into the fight. With

slogans and occasional compassion,with weapons, courts, prisons, and pa-trols, especially with perplexity andconfusion, we have probably served inthe end to frustrate our own good

*This paper was originally written as

&dquo;Class and the Economics of Crime&dquo; toappear in J. Weaver, ed., Political Economy:Radical and Orthodox Approaches (NewYork: Allyn and Bacon, 1973) . A few changeshave been made from that original version. Itappeared in an abridged form under the

same title in Review of Radical Political

Economics, Summer 1971, and it drawson

some material in David M. Gordon, ed.,

Problems in Political Economy: An Urban

Perspective (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath,

1971) . Permission has been granted by both

publishers.


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intentions, to fan the flames rather

than douse them. We seem to have as

much trouble understanding the prob-lem of crime as we do effecting itssolution.

Weanwhile, amidst the confusion,orthodox economists have been strid-

ing elegantly to our rescue. Cool, fear-less, the perfect picture of profession-alism, they have been promising to

guide us toward &dquo;optimal&dquo; crime pre-vention and control. Off with our

silliness! Off with our psychologicalmuddle-htadednessl Gary Becker, a

sort of guru among them, explainshow easily we can understand it all:

A useful theory of criminal behaviorcan dispense with special theories of ano-mie, psychological inadequacies, or inher-itance of special traits and simply extendthe economist’s usual analysis of choice.&dquo;1

As I have read and thought recentlyabout she problem of crime in theUnited States, I’ve found myself re-

turning over and over to the sameconclusions-that the public’s under-standing of the problem is mistaken,that the government’s policy respons-es are misguided, and that the recentorthodox economic analyses havebeen misleading. This paper attemptsto amplify those impressions. I havenot tried to present a detailed brief

againstthe conventional wisdom and

the orthodox economic view. Instead,I intend to articulate my differences

with those positions by formulating analternative, radical analysis of crimi-nal behavior and by evoking an alter-native normative view of an appropri-ate social response to crime.

The paper has five sections. The

first offers a brief descriptive summary

of the nature and extent of crime in

the United States. The second surveyssome conventional public perspectiveson the problem of crime, while thethird outlines recentt orthodox eco-

nomic approachesto

the problem.In the fourth section, I sketch theframework of a radical economic an-

alysis of crime in the United States. Inthe final section, I amplify an alterna-tive normative view of the appropri-ate social response to criminal behav-

ior.2

1. Crime in America

To compare analytic approaches tothe problem of crime, one must first

clarify its empirical dimensions. Sever-al useful summaries of the nature and

extent of American crime are easilyavailable, especially in the summaryreport by the President’s Crime Com-mission and in Ramsey Clark’s recentbook.3 Relying primarily on the basic

1. Gary Becker, "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," Journal of Political

Economy, March-April 1968, p. 170.

2. I am not an expert on crime and I have

not pursued extensive research about the

problem. The thoughts in this paper draw

mainly on some limited elementary reading;as a layman in the field, I offer these

thoughts with considerable hesitation, whichhas especially affected my style of argument.Since I do not speak with authority, I havetried wherever possible to include quotesfrom respected and respectable "authorities"to support my arguments.

3. President’s Commission on Law En-

forcement and Administration of Justice, The

Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Wash-ington, D.C.: U.S. Government PrintingOffice, 1967) ; Ramsey Clark, Crime in Ameri-ca (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970).For some useful summaries of the basic data,

see the first two reading selections in the

chapter on crime in David M. Gordon, ed.,Problems in Political Economy: An Urban

Perspective (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath,

1971). Another useful summary of informa-

tion about "urban crime" can be found in

Marvin E. Wolfgang, "Urban Crime," in

James Q. Wilson, ed., The MetropolitanEnigma (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-

sity Press, 1968). For much more detailedinformation, see the appendices to President’s




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facts documented in those sources, I

have tried in the following paragraphsto outline the most important ques-tions about the problem of crimewhich

any analysismust

tryto resolve.

It seems important to emphasize,first of all,,that crime is ubiquitous inthe United States. Our laws are so

pervasive that one must virtually re-tire to hermitage in order to avoid

committing a crime. According to anational survey conduoted in 1965 bythe President’s Crime Commission, 91

per cent of all adult Americans &dquo;ad-

mitted that they had committed actsfor which they might have received

jail or prison sentences.&dquo;4 The CrimeCommission also found that in 1965

&dquo;more than two million Americans

were received in prisons or juveniletraining schools, or placed on

probation&dquo;-well over 2 per cent ofthe labor force. Criminal behavior, it

appears, is clearly a norm and not an

aberration.5Given that ubiquity, it seems equal-

ly important to emphasize our ex-

traordinary selectivity in our atten-tion to the problem of crime. Wefocus all our nearly paranoid fearsabout &dquo;law ’n’ order&dquo; and &dquo;safe

streets&dquo; on a limited number of crimes

while we altogether ignore manyother kinds of crime, equally serious

and of much greater economic impor-tance.

One can sketch the dimensions of

this selectivity quite easily. The crimeson which the

publicdoes concen-

trate its fears and cannons are often

lumped together as &dquo;urban&dquo; or &dquo;vio-lent&dquo; crimes. These crimes can be

usefully summarized by those forwhich the FBI accumulates a generalstatistical index. Seven &dquo;Index Crimes&dquo;

are traced in the Bureau’s peri-odic Crime Report: willful homicide,forcible rape, aggravated assault, rob-

bery, burglary, larceny (ofmore

than$50), and motor vehicle theft. To-

gether, these seven crimes encompassthe raging fire in fear of which wehide inside our homes.

Some basic facts about these seven

fearsome crimes are well known. The

measured incidence of the Index

Crimes has been increasing rapidly inthe United States in the past ten to fif-

teen years. The Index Crimes occurtwice as frequently in large cities as

they do on average throughout the

country. Within large cities, they oc-cur most frequently in ghetto areas.The threat and tragedy of violentcrime notwithstanding, almost all ofthese crimes are economically moti-

vated ; as Clark notes quite simply,&dquo;their main purpose is to obtain mon-

ey or property.&dquo;7 Seven-eighths of themare crimes against property; only one-

eighth are crimes against the person,and many of the relatively few &dquo;vio-lent&dquo; crimes actually occur inadvert-

ently in the process of committingcrimes against property.

Commission, op. cit. supra, Corrections

(1967), The Courts (1967) , and Crime andIts Impact—An Assessment (1967). For some

interesting comments on the Crime Commis-sion Report, see James Q. Wilson, "Crime inthe Streets," The Public Interest, No. 5, Fall

1966.

4. President’s Commission, Challenge ofCrime, op. cit. supra note 3, p. v.

5. One should add, of course, that these

figures refer only to those harmful acts which

actuallyviolate some law. Many other tangi-bly harmful acts, like faulty manufacture ofautomobiles or certain kinds of pollution,have not yet been declared illegal.

6. Clark also notes, op. cit. supra note 3,that the increase may be misleading, simply

because many kinds of crime are much more

likely to be reported these days than were

comparable crimes, say, thirty years ago.7. Id., p. 38.




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183

Juvenile Hall witli me were also there

again. They arrived there soon after I gotthere, or a little bit before I left. Theyalways seemed to make the scene. In theCalifornia prison system, they carry youfrom

Juvenile Hallto

the old folks’colo-

ny, down in San Luis Obispo, and waitfor you to die. Then they bury you there....I noticed these waves, these gener-ations

... graduating classes moving upfrom Juvenile Hall, all the way up.65

And those who succeed finally in un-

derstanding the trap and in pullingthemselves out of it, like Malcolm X,Claude Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, and

George Jackson, seem to succeed pre-cisely because they understood how

debilitating the cycle becomes, how

totally dehumanizing it will remain. Another black ex-con has perfectlyexpressed the sudden insight whichallowed him to pull out of the trap:

It didn’t take me any time to decide I

wasn’t going back to commit crimes. Be-cause it’s stupid, it’s a trap, it only makesit easier for them to neutralize you. It’s

hard to explain, because you can’t say it’sa question of right and wrong, but of

being free or [being] trapped.66

If the system did not effect this neu-

tralization, if so many of the poorwere not trapped in the debilitatingsystem of crime and punishment, theymight gather the strength to opposethe

systemsthat reinforces their mis-

ery. Like many other institutions in

this country, the system of crime and

punishment serves an important func-tion for the capitalist class by dividingand weakening those who might po-tentially seek to overthrow the capi-talist system. Although the capitalistshave not created the system, in any

direct sense, they would doubtlesslyhate to have to do without it.67

The third and perhaps most impor-tant functionally supportive role ofthe current patterns of crime and

punishment is that those patterns al-low us to ignore some basic issuesabout the relationships in our societybetween institutions and individuals.

By treating criminals as animals andmisfits, as enemies of the state, we are

permitted to continue avoiding somebasic questions about the dehumaniz-

ing effects of our social institutions.We

keepour criminals out of

sight,so

we are never forced to recognize anddeal with the psychic punishment weinflict on them. Like the schools and

the welfare system, the legal systemturns out, upon close inspection, to be

robbing most of its &dquo;clients&dquo; of thelast vestiges of their personal dignity.

65.

Cleaver, op.

cit.

supranote 35,

pp.154-55.

66. Bell Gale Chevigny, "After the Deathof Jail," Village Voice, July 10, 1969; partiallyreprinted in Gordon, op. cit. supra note 3.

67. One should not underestimate the

importance of this effect for quantitative as

well as qualitative reasons. In July 1968, forinstance, an estimated 140,000 blacks were

serving time in penal institutions at federal,state, and local levels. If the percentage of

black males in prison had been as low as the

proportions of white men (by age groups),there would have been only 25,000 blacks in

jail. If those extra 115,000 black men werenot in prison, they would likely be unem-

ployed or intermittently employed. In addi-tion, official labor force figures radicallyundercount the number of blacks in the

census because many black malesarc

simplymissed by the census-taker. In July 1968,almost one million black males were

"missed" in that way. On the conservative

assumption that one-fifth of those "missingmales" were in one way or another evadingthe law, involved in hustling, or otherwise

trapped in the legal system, a total of 315,000black men who might be unemployed were itnot for the effects of the law were not

counted in "measured" unemployment statis-tics. Total "measured" black male unemploy-ment

in July 1968was

317,000,so

that thetotal black unemployment problem might be

nearly twice as large as we "think" it is wereit not for the selectiveeffects of our police,courts, and prisons on black men.




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184

Each one of those institutions, in its

own way, helps us forget about the

responsibilities we might alternativelyassume for providing the best possibleenvironment within which all of us

could grow and develop as individu-als. Cleaver sees this &dquo;role&dquo; of the

system quite clearly:

Those who are now in prison could be

put through a process of real rehabilita-tion before their release.... By rehabili-tation I mean they would be trained for

jobs that would not be an insult to their

dignity, that would give them some senseof

security,that would allow them to

achieve some brotherly connection withtheir fellow man. But for this kind of

rehabilitation to happen on a large scalewould entail the complete reorganizationof society, not to mention the prisonsystem. It would call for the teaching of anew set of ethics, based on the principleof cooperation, as opposed to the present-ly dominating principle of competition.It would require the transformation ofthe entire moral fabric .... 68

By keeping its victims so thoroughlyhidden and rendering them so appar-ently inhuman, our system of crimeand punishment allows us to forgethow sweeping a &dquo;transformation&dquo; ofour social ideology we would requirein order to begin solving the problemof crime. The more we forget, themore

protectedthe

capitalistsremain

from a thorough re-examination ofthe ideological basis of the institu-tions upon which they depend.

It seems useful to summarize brieflythe analysis outlined in this section,in order both to emphasize the con-nections among its arguments and to

clarify its differences with other

&dquo;models&dquo; of crime and punishment.Most crimes in this country share a

single important similarity-they rep-resent rational responses to the com-

petitiveness and inequality of life in

capitalist societies. (In this emphasison the rationality of crime, the analy-sis differs with the &dquo;conventional pub-lic analyses&dquo; of crime and resemblesthe orthodox economic approach.)Many crimes seem very different atthe same time, but many of theirdifferences-in character and degreeof violence-can usefully be ex-

plained by the structure of class insti-tutions in this country and the dualityof the

public systemof the enforce-

ment and administration of justice.(In this central deployment of theradical concepts of class and the class-biased State, the analysis differs funda-

mentally with both the &dquo;public&dquo; andthe orthodox economic perspectives.)That duality, in turn, can fruitfullybe explained by a dynamic view of theclass-biased role of public institutionsand the vested interests which evolve

out of the State’s activities. For many

reasons, finally, it seems unlikely thatwe can change the patterns of crimeand punishment, for the kinds of

changes we would need would appearsubstantially to threaten the stabilityof the capitalist system. If we managedsomehow to eliminate ghetto crime,for instance, the competitiveness, ine-

qualities, and racism ofour

institu-tions would tend to reproduce it. Andif, by chance, the pattern of ghettocrime was not reproduced, the capital-ists might simply have to invent someother way of neutralizing the poten-tial opposition of so many black men,against which they might once againbe forced to rebel with &dquo;criminal

acts.&dquo; It is in that sense of fundamen-

tal causality that we must somehowchange the entire structure of institu-tions in this country in order to elimi-

nate the causes of crime.68. Cleaver, op. cit. supra note 35, pp. 179,

182.




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185

5. A Normative View of Crime

Strangely enough, I find it easiest toevoke an alternative normative view

of crime and to compare it with our

current social

responses

to the

prob-lem by drawing on a recent exchangein the legal literature.

In a widely heralded article writtenin 1964, Herbert Packer, a leading American legal expert on criminal

process, argued that most legal discus-sion of criminal procedure involves aconflict (or dialogue) between twodifferent models of the criminal proc-

ess. He called one of these the&dquo;Crime Control Model&dquo; and the other

the &dquo;Due Process Model.&dquo; The em-

phases embodied in each model close-

ly resemble the difference in emphasisbetween the general conservative andliberal views of crime, respectively, asdescribed in the second section of this

article. The Crime Control Model,

accordingto Packer, &dquo;is based on the

proposition that the repression ofcriminal conduct is by far the most

important function to be performedby the criminal process.&dquo; The DueProcess Model, on the other hand,derives from the &dquo;concept of the pri-macy of the individual and the com-

plementary concept of limitation onofficial power.&dquo;189

In reply to Packer’s article, JohnGriffiths argued that Packer’s twomodels represent qualitatively similarviews of the relationship between thecriminal and society, deriving fromsome common ideological assump-tions about the law.70 Griffiths calls

this set of shared assumptions the&dquo;Battle Model of the Criminal Proc-

ess.&dquo; He argues that both the &dquo;con-

servative&dquo; and &dquo;liberal&dquo; views derive

from a common vision of conflict and

hostility between the aberrant, devi-ant individual on the one hand and

the social &dquo;order&dquo; on the other. To

illustrate the communality of the twomodels proposed by Packer, Griffiths

suggests a third &dquo;model&dquo; which closelyresembles what I presume to be the

radical vision of how society should

respond to its &dquo;criminals.&dquo; He callsthis the &dquo;Family Model of the Crimi-nal Process,&dquo; suggesting that society’streatment of criminals could easily be

patterned after the treatment byfamilies of those family members who

betray the family trust. The FamilyModel begins from an assumption,Griffiths writes, of &dquo;reconcilable-

even mutually supportive-interests, astate of love.&dquo;71 In contrast to the

Battle Model, the Family Modelwould propose that &dquo;we can make

plain that while the criminal has

transgressed, we do not therefore cuthim off from us; our concern and

dedication to his well-being continue.We have punished him and drawnhim back in among us; we have not

cast him out to fend for himself

against our systematic enmity.&dquo; As in

the best families, society would workactively, supportively, and lovingly torestore the state of trust and mutual

respect upon which the family and

society should both be based. Ratherthan forcing the criminal to admit hisfailure and reform himself, we would

all admit our mutual failures and seek

to reform the total community-in

which effort the criminal would playan important, constructive, and edu-cative role.

69. Herbert Packer, "Two Models of the

Criminal Process," University of PennsylvaniaLaw

Review, November 1964.70. John Griffiths, "Ideology in Criminal

Procedure, or a Third ’Model’ of the Crimi-nal Process," Yale Law Journal, January1970. 71. Id., p. 371.




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The Battle Model, as Griffiths de-scribes it, obviously reflects not only&dquo;liberal&dquo; and &dquo;conservative&dquo; views of

crime but the manifest reality of oursocial treatment of criminals in this

country; it is reflected exactly in a

psychiatrist’s recent description of the

ideology underlying the Californiaprisons:

The people who run these places ...believe that the way to get a man’s behav-

ior to change is to impose very strictcontrols and take away everything hevalues and make him work to get it back.

But that doesn’t make him

change.It

justgenerates more and more rage and hostil-

ity.72

The Family Model, in contrast, illus-trates the fundamentally different pri-orities which might motivate institu-tional responses to criminal behavior

in a radically different kind of society,one in which human needs were

served and developed by social institu-tions rather than sacrificed to the in-

terests of a single dominant class.That vision of social response mayseem like a very distant dream in this

country, but it seems like a dream

worthy of all our most determined

pursuit.

72. Quoted in the New York Times, Feb.7, 1971, p. 64.


David Gordon

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