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An International Crime Decline: Lessons for Social Welfare Crime Policy?
Author(s) -
Knepper Paul
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2012.00838.x
Subject(s) - cultural criminology , welfare , social policy , political science , social welfare , situational ethics , criminology , politics , economics , development economics , sociology , law
During the past two decades, crime rates have declined in Europe and North America. A number of explanations have been offered for why this has come about, but there has been much less discussion about what governments should do now. This article considers the policy implications of an international crime decline with a focus on the relationship between crime reduction and social welfare. The discussion here includes the possibility of a convergence across social welfare improvements, the danger of misreading the USA as a trend‐setter, the potential of the Scandinavian way in situational crime prevention, the chance of persistence in high‐crime politics and the dilemma of realizing social policy objectives from crime reduction initiatives.