Economics and Politics in Criminology

Economics

This field of study focuses on how individuals, business, governments, and nations make choices on how to allocate resources. It is also described as a social science concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

As you may have noticed from the video, there are two major divisions of the overall field of economics: macroeconomics and microeconomics.

Microeconomics studies individual areas of activity, such as a an individual person or a firm, while macroeconomics looks at entire systems, such as an entire sector or an entire government system.

In general, economics is also concerned with efficiency in production and exchange, and uses models and assumptions to understand how to create incentives and policies that will maximize efficiency. Furthermore, it can articulate numerous economic indicators, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and the consumer price index (CPI).

GDP

CPI

A high standard of living increases productivity and more efficient use of resources. This is the origin and problem of economics. Humans can have unlimited wants, but resources are limited.

Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish historian, once said that economics is a "dismal science." (1849) He used it to criticize John's Stuart Mill's liberal views on race. Some sources suggested that Carlyle was describing the gloomy predictions of Thomas Robert Malthus that the outstripping of food supply was based on population growth.

Key Economic Concepts

The four ideas will help explain the decision-making process of humans:

Scarcity

The basic economic problem is that the world's resources are limited. People's unlimited wants drive them to find the most efficient way of allocating resources.

Supply and Demand

This is the main driver of the market system. Supply is the amount of the product that is available, while demand is the intensity of how much people want said product. The price of said good will be dictated by the interaction of these two, under normal market conditions.

Costs and Benefits

These are the price of an action and the gains from said action.

"Everything is in the Incentives"

This is the idea of offering a reward or incentive in order to increase the probablity of a positive particular outcome. The benefits can be exceptional when incentives meet with the organizational goals.

In other words, the scarcity of resources makes humans have to constantly decide. These decisions are based on the costs, benefits, and incentives offered by different courses of action.

Economic Theories of Crime Causation

From a criminological perspective, people choose to commit crime because of a decision they have made after choosing between illegal activity and legal activity based on the overall utility that they perceive will come from those acts. It is assumed that participation in criminal activity is a result of the individual optimizing individual response to incentives.

According to Freeman (1999), these are the main issues in the economics of crime literature:

1. the effects of incentive on criminal behavior;
2. how decisions interact in the market-setting; and,
3. the use of cost-benefit analysis to assess alternative policies to reduce crime

These are the factors that influence an individual's decision to engage in criminal activity:

1. expected gains from the crime relative to earnings from legal work, e.g. weighing the gain from illegal activities vs low salary
2. chance or risk of being caught and convicted
3. extent or severity of punishment
4. legal opportunities or a lack thereof, e.g. unemployment

The following are some economic frameworks that are used to explain criminal behavior.

Rational Model

An individual's decision to commit crime is based on a cost-benefit analysis completed by said individual. This is consistent in both the short- and long-term.

Present-Oriented or Myopic Model

As the name implies, an individual's decision to commit crime was based on short-term gains without regard for the long-term consequences of their actions.

Radical Political Economic Model

This model says that there are three key factors that sustain crime: relative deprivation, poverty, and inequality.

Politics

Politics, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is the "art or science of government". This is the big picture idea of politics that encompasses an entire country. However, politics is not limited to entire governmental bodies. The same dictionary also defines it as "the total complex of relations between people living in society." In other words, the manner in which people deal with each other can also be considered as politics.

Political affiliations are said to belong to the following opposing ideologies: conservative and liberal. While they may look completely different at first glance, people's inclinations really are fall on a spectrum made up of these two at separate extremes.

Conservatives believe in the supremacy of preservation of tradition while liberals believe in pushing for societal change.

When people are extremely adherent to one side, they are called extremists.

People whose political ideas are incredibly different from that of society at large are called radicals.

Today, radicals and extremists are often thought of as synonymous with each other, but radical ideas do not necessarily cause harm to society. Before everyone was given the right of suffrage, there was a time when the idea of a woman having the right to vote during elections was thought of as radical.

Political Theories of Crime Causation

It is said that any crime theory is a political theory. This is because any form of crime could be politically-motivated and any crime could be used for political purposes.

Emphasizing social conflict and power relationships are the main characteristics of political theories of crime.

Political crime theories thus propose that:

1. criminology has always been a politically-oriented discipline
2. conservative, liberal, and radical political ideologies characterize the differences among theories
3. any crime may have political significance
4. political crimes can be viewed through any other theories, not simply labeling and conflict theories
5. political theory is the basis of every theory

Conflict Theory

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