Doing Criminological Research by Pamela Davies & Peter Francis & Victor Jupp

Author:Pamela Davies & Peter Francis & Victor Jupp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage Publications
Published: 2011-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

WHAT IS WRONG WITH UNDERCLASS THEORIES OF YOUTH CRIME?

Returning to Murray’s theory of a cultural underclass, on the face of it, there is some ‘fit’ between what he says in respect of young men and crime and what we found in the ‘underclass’ locales we researched. Many young men had not been brought up by two, married birth parents. Crime rates were significantly above average and drug markets (for heroin and more lately crack cocaine) and drug use have had a terrible effect upon the place. Unemployment, and associated welfare payments, have become a common and recurrent feature of life. Young men and women often do not have clear, successful labour market ‘careers’. Poverty is widespread. Clearly, some do make choices that, on the face of it, lead them toward crime, drug use and welfare.

So what is so wrong with underclass theory? We can understand how simplistic sketches of social statistics pertaining to this place and brief conversations with some residents (i.e. the sort of methods adopted by Murray) might lead one to positive conclusions of its existence. Yet we come to a different conclusion. We raise four points of objection here. Each, we think, demonstrates the importance of our methodological choices and approach (i.e. had we done things differently we may not have been able to make these arguments).

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