[PEN-L:427] Re: The Economic Meaning of Violence/2

[Fellows, Jeffrey]

It is important how you specify "decades." Clearly, over the last decade
crime rates have been going down, at the same time incarcerations have
dramatically risen. This does not mean that incarceration prevents
crimes, although many criminal justice researchers, and social
conservatives, are quick to make this link. I do not have the article on
hand, so I can't comment on the source of his crime data. If he is using
the national crime victimization survey, instead of police reports
(uniform crime reports), then the numbers will be higher. However, the
1994 NCVS was redesigned to better estimate crimes like rape and sexual
assault. This resulted in higher numbers in 1994, vs 1992, data.

If, however, the author includes the rapid rate increases in the 1960s
mid-1980s, but does not separate out the leveling and declines during
the 1990s, then his analysis is flawed.

In the data I have seen, and worked with, nothing leads me to believe
that criminal behavior, or crimes, are on the rise, let alone outpaced
the imprisonment growth rate (itself greatly constrained by limited
capacity). In fact, this is a relationship progressives need to
communicate, i.e., that crime is falling. So let's redirect public
resources toward equitable health, housing and education.

To be fair, I will read the article before offering further criticism.

Jeff

 ----------
From: Thomas Kruse
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:420] Re: The Economic Meaning of Violence/2
Date: Thursday, June 04, 1998 8:52AM

>I'm wondering if anyone knows of any writing on the economic meaning of
>violence

My, what a post; really got the old brain clunking.  I just read Isaach
Ehrlich's "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses" in the
Journal of
Econ Perspective, v10, n1, winter 1996.  One intersting note, perhaps
relevant to your prupose. Ehrlich notes:

 - "crime has been a growth industry in the US over the last decades"
(he
looks at murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assualt, burglary, larceny,
auto
theft)

 - "the probabalility and severity of punishment has been falling over
the
last three decades.  A lower percentage of offenses known to police is
resulting in arrest; the probability of imprisonment is smaller; and the
time served in prison is shorter"

 - "the growth in prison population, substantial as it is, has not kept
up
with the even larger growth in criminal behavior."

Ehrlich notes, from his peculiar neo-classical view, the state can't
keep up
with crime (dole out "negative incentives" fast enough).  Now, does
violence
(in this case "crime") -- might be that "whole vast arena of action that
laws have not prohibited that violence by individuals and groups has
policed" -- serve the functioning of the capitalist economy?  Does that
violence add up to policing, that is, help in the process of producing a
docile body politic, manageble laboring classes, and a neutralized
reserve army?

You post suggests two kinds of violence (many more are possible): state
sanctioned, and not.  Not would presumably be other kinds of violence in
society (abusive coercion at work, rape, gay bashing, domestic abuse,
"hate
crimes", etc.).  Both state sanctioned or not, however, require a great
deal
more specification.

Once specified, I imagine in some instance we'd have to back off simple
functionalist depictions of violence (implied in my questions above).
Some
forms are very ambiguous (though admitted some are definitely not).

.....

Changing tack abruptly (it's late), an observation from anthropology:
there
are numerous examples of cultures and civilizations not forced to
"choose"
between legally enforceable property rights (contracts backed by police)
and
generalized violence, be it state sanctioned or in "vast arenas" not yet
criminalized/regulated, and carried out by individuals and groups.
Numerous
other mechanisms for assuring mutual accountability and control over the
social distribution of property without such violence are evident -- not
equitable, but evident.

I would recommend Penelope Harvey and Peter Gow's volume _Sex and
Violence:
Issues in Representation and Experience_.  See especially Olivia Harris'
article "Condor and Bull" on masculity, social order and violence in
rural
Bolivia.  Very suggestive on where kinds of violence come from; how they
are
played out; how they become "meaningfull".  She notes, for example, four
contexts of violence:

"1. feuds between ayllus (communities) over territorial borders which
are
known in the Aymara and Quechua of the region as ch'axwa;
2. the battles genearlly known as as tinku which are highly
insitutionalized
and closely associatec with the ritual calendar;
3. the fights between individual or groups which break out during
fiestas as
a result of interpersonal tensions;
4. the common place violence of men against their wives"

In each context she distinguishes who attacks who, relative balance in
the
confrontation, etc.  In her account she departs from functionalism;
violence
is not simply a necessary regulating mechanism in society.  Rather, it
is
ambiguous.  It is collectively and ritualistically performed; yet
non-participation carries no material sanction.  Certain contexts call
on
men to be vigours, violent; yet others "recognize that fighting easily
spills over into something more terrible and more destructive, which is
at
the same time found at the heart of domestic life."

Not Kansas; thus (perhaps) helpful in thinking through Kansas.

Tom

Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]