Class

Crime as Correlate of Downward Mobility

The Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl model of social class contains six distinct tiers in descending order: the capitalist class, the upper-middle class, the lower-middle class, the working class, the working poor, and the underclass. Crime is committed by people belonging to all classes, though certain types of crime are perceived as belonging to one class or another. Reaction to such crimes appears to correlate with the social class with which the crimes are associated. People who commit corporate violence, tax fraud, or embezzlement are not generally perceived as belonging to a criminal class or as living in a high-crime neighborhood. Crimes associated with a lower-income strata, such as burglary and drug possession, are perceived by the wider society as deviant, personally threatening, and endemic to communities belonging to the “submiddle class.”

Although a pattern of maldistribution of justice may appear individualist on the surface, such patterns produce collectivistic punitive results. When segregated residential patterns and targeted surveillance are combined, entire communities become increasingly prone to high concentrations of disenfranchised adults, households lacking a sufficient “breadwinner,” and a shrunken tax base, which in turn negatively affects the amount of revenue available for much-needed services such as infrastructure maintenance and public education.

The urban myth that standardized test scores of third-grade African American and Hispanic males are used to predict how many prisons to construct has been debunked; however, there is an element of truth in the myth. Test scores do predict dropout rates, and level of education spuriously predicts prison population. Persons with no high school diploma or its equivalence constitute the greatest proportion of inmates, compared with prisoners with high school diplomas, with some college, and with college degrees.

As a consequence of poverty in the midst of an affluent society, members of the submiddle class have limited ability to attain relative economic sufficiency. In accordance with Robert Merton's thesis on social strains, members of such populations have an increased reliance on the informal economy or other illegal activities in order to meet society's demands. Examples of the informal economy range from undocumented income from unlicensed child care services, hair salons, and “shade tree mechanics” to more illicit activities such as racketeering, the reselling of stolen merchandise, or the distribution of controlled substances.

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