Social Class and Criminal Behavior through a Biosocial Lens
Document Type
Contribution to Books
Publication Date
11-1-2011
Abstract
The relationship between social class (socioeconomic states--SES), and criminal behavior has been central to sociological criminology since its inception. Theories such as anomie, social disorganization, differential association, Marxist-conflict, labeling, and rational choice theories, make logical claims that we should expect to see a negative class-crime relationship (Tittle, 1983; Walsh, 2011). Careless reasoning even led some criminologists to posit that social class causes crime; at least if it is conceptualized as the poverty-non-poverty dichotomy that Hirschi (1969:71) maintains constitutes the true class-crime relationship implicit in most theories. Of course, SES per se does not directly cause crime or anything else; it is only a convenient label conceptualized and measured in different ways to categorize people in order to compare them on outcomes across various domains of interest.
Publication Information
Walsh, Anthony and Mueller, David G.. (2011). "Social Class and Criminal Behavior through a Biosocial Lens". The Ashgate Research Companion to Biosocial Theories of Crime, 305-328.