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THE UNDERCLASS Crime, Community and Attending to Events Which Had Been 'Invisible' Or Irrelevant in Welfare the Past

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THE UNDERCLASS Crime, Community and Attending to Events Which Had Been 'Invisible' Or Irrelevant in Welfare the Past CJM CRIM. JUSTICE MTE8S THE UNDERCLASS Crime, community and attending to events which had been 'invisible' or irrelevant in welfare the past. The term 'moral panic' It is a decade ago now that Charles Murray is marshalled to denounce and first described and accounted for a growing cauterise moral sensitivity to American underclass and bagged Marx's virtually anything that human notion of the lumpenproletariat for the beings may suffer or inflict one radical right. Now, by concentrating on upon another, or any concern the 'early warning signals' of illegitimacy, that conditions should not get violent crime and labour force drop out, worse, or could be improved. he finds that here too is a growing There is a strong resistance population "who live in a different way to suggestions that some from other Britons ... and whose values behaviour, like out of wedlock are contaminating the life of entire child-bearing, might be neighbourhoods..." The underclass is the problematic and that fathers are necessary Fathers were uninvolved and haphazard pathological manifestation of a 'culture forchildren' s development. Certainly, any providers. With no premium on restraint, of dependency' produced by welfare notion that the values of the poor have a husbands and wives fought like tigers and policy induced changes in incentives. First role in sustaining their disadvantages readily deserted. Poverty too could be in America and now here, the benefits seems to blame them for their own seen as a symptom of a defective culture, system put a premium on being poor; misfortunes. Murray sees this as the set in motion by external pressures, and made it worthwhile for families to break homogenisation of the poor as a group of perpetuating itself in the face of changing up and for lower class women to forego deserving victims, whose only problem is opportunities. Hence, Murray has been marriage, as father absence means accused of just re-cycling an old 'culture increased economic well-being. With no of poverty thesis'. pressure on men to support families, their It is a decade ago now that It is possible not to dispute the facts or efforts decline. The changes in the rules Charles Murray first the effects of growing social dislocation, of the economic game cause "status described and accounted while taking issue with Murray over the conventions to flip completely in some reasons. The position of those like communities". for a growing American American sociologist William Julius underclass and bagged Wilson, is to be distinguished from any Marx's notion of the rejection or dismissal of the facts or effects Breaking taboos of social deterioration. In turn, While a Sunday Times report credits lumpenproletariat for the characterisations and explanations in Murray with having 'invented the idea of radical right. terms of a 'dependency culture', or an "underclass"', he is more a taboo anything else, can be rejected without breaker. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan, having to deny that an underclass exists or a democrat, published The Negro Family: lack of money. Traditionally, even what it is. Even reasons for its existence The Case for National Action in 1965, working class people distanced and whether or not it is welcomed can be which first drew attention to disintegrative themselves from the 'roughs', who lacked distinguished from how it is identified. trends in black families, it was met with the order and controls to wrest Urban communities in the recent past such outrage from the progressive independence and dignity from a hard were more likely to exhibit features of intelligentsia that serious investigation of environment. social organisation, like positive problems in the American inner city was neighbourhood identification and explicit curtailed for over a decade. With the The criminal area rules and sanctions against aberrant persistent refusal to notice or believe signs However, accounts of antisocial behaviour behaviour. There is a distinction here of social deterioration, a prominent and delinquency as subcultural class between networks of interlinked, response to rising crime is still to deny differences were prominent up into the overlapping and mutually supportive that anything is happening beyond a 1960s. Fabian sociologist Terence Morris relationships - involving marriage, family, statistical illusion, created by people spoke unabashedly of how older teenagers neighbourhood, work, school and and adults were "like recreation - and social structures which 'carriers' of disease" are more like a pile of bricks, disjointed in The Criminal Area. and divided. The extent of ties to As attitudes and immediate groups of family, friends, behaviourcarriedover neighbourhood, school and work are from an earlier measures of integration everywhere. delinquent phase, Detachment is predictive of levels of absenteeism replaced crime, mental illness, welfare dependency, truancy and the boss suicide and so forth. ortheteacherasfigure of alien authority. Children cast out into The underclass the street play group The 'underclass' describes the worst soon graduated to the results of social dislocation. Family hedonistic gang. disruption is most acute, and low social 10 CJM No. 18. Winter 94/95 CJM CRIMINAL BTOIMIS THE UNDERCLASS class, poor parental supervision, relatives wider society, where the collapse of the which are working so drastically against who are unwed mothers and poor family is a general development. them. neighbourhoods all compound each other. In turn, while a person's behaviour Patricia Morgan is Senior Research A heterogeneous mix of people are outside and outlook tend to be shaped by those of the occupational system and their with whom they are in frequent contact - Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, isolation makes it difficult to get into job we do not have to go beyond this to Health & Welfare Unit. networks and maintain behaviour separate subcultural values. Highly References conducive to good work performance. conventional values and aspirations also Jencks C and Peterson P E eds (1991) The Boys assume that the upkeep of children run throughout society. The incentive and Urban Underclass The Brookings is something women take care of, as disincentive effects of wages, benefits Institute, Washington. patterns of transient relationships become and taxation are considered by men in Jordon W et al (1992) Trapped in Poverty: cyclical. With dependence on public relation to the way these facilitate or labour market decisions in low-income assistance taken for granted, it is difficult frustrate their efforts to fulfil their primary households. Routledge to develop useful work habits and attitudes. moral obligations as worker and family Magnet M (1993) The Dream and the Access to income from crime reinforces provider. And here, while the benefits Nightmare: the sixties' legacy to the men's detachment from the labour force. system has become increasingly underclass. William Morrow & Co New The more communities draw on illegal developed for lone parents, there has also York. income and are victimised by violence, been a massive loss of jobs for less skilled Morris T (1957) The Criminal Area. the less capable are the law-abiding of men, and employment has generally R&KP. setting standards. The exodus of more become fragile and casualised. These Murray C (1984) Losing Ground: stable working- and middle-class employment changes alone are enough to American Social Policy 1950-80. Basic segments, means further isolation from decimate a community's supply of Books, New York. mainstream patterns and norms. marriageable males. However, it does not Murray C (1990) The Emerging British do just to blame Murray for a lopsided Underclass Choice in Welfare Series No. At very least, Murray knows a explanation, or even massive omission. 2. Institute of Economic Affairs At very least, he knows a social catastrophe Murray C (1994) Underclass: The Crisis social catastrophe when he when he sees one. Those who criticise, Deepens Choice in Welfare Series No. sees one but persist in defining problems only in 20. Institute of Economic Affairs racial or sexual terms, are just diverting Wilson W J (1987) The Truly attention away from the way that the fate While we have extreme and deepening Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the of poor communities is extricably tied to dislocation in some communities, facets Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago the economic shifts and public policies of this dislocation are spreading in the Univ. of Chic Press KEY POVERTY STATISTICS - From the Child Poverty Action Group A growing section of our society is living in poverty. Rises in real income between 1979 and 1991/92 (after The poverty line - There is no official poverty line. Instead housing costs and including the self-employed) CPAG uses two alternatives; one derived from the 'Low Income Families' statistics based on the level of income Income before Income after support (1), the other derived from the government House- housing costs housing costs holds Below Average Incomes (2), based on 50% of average First 10% (bottom) 0 -17% income after housing costs. Second 6% 0 The 'poverty line' in 1991/2 (1994 prices) Third 11% 6% (50% of average income after housing costs) Fourth 16% 16% Single adult £63 Fifth 23% 23% Couple with no children £115 Sixth 28% 29% Couple with 3 children Seventh 31% 33% (aged 3, 8, 11) £191 Eighth 36% 39% All family types £115 Ninth 44% 46% Tenth (top) 57% 62% The numbers in poverty - According to the latest figures 1 in 4 people (including children) in the UK were living in poverty Total population 36% 36% in 1991 /92 compared with under 1 in 10 in 1979. Children are (1) See Poverty the Facts, C Oppenheim, CPAG Ltd, 1993 for even more likely to be in poverty - nearly 1 in 3 were living in an analysis of Low Income Statistics. poverty in 1991/92 compared to 1 in 10 in 1979. (2) Households below Average Incomes, A statistical analy- Growing divisions - There has been a dramatic widening of sis 1979-1991/92, DSS, HMSO 1994 the gap between rich and poor since 1979.
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