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Crime Decline’: Change and Continuity in Crime and Harm

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Crime Decline’: Change and Continuity in Crime and Harm Analysing the ‘Crime Decline’: Change and Continuity in Crime and Harm. Justin Wesley Kotzé A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Teesside University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. May 2016 Justin Kotzé PhD Thesis Abstract: Over the past two decades crime rates appear to have undergone a statistical decline in a number of predominantly Western countries. Representing a discernible break from the not too distant past, this remarkable reversal has unsurprisingly generated significant scholarly interest and spawned a voluminous literature seeking to explore and explain this purported ‘international crime decline’. However, the evidence upon which claims of this apparent reversal are based appears less than robust and raises a number of questions regarding the validity of the ‘crime decline’ discourse. Accordingly, this research aims to critically interrogate the dominant data source at the heart of this discourse and begins to offer an alternative view of the reality of crime and harm by drawing upon original empirical research. To this end the thesis examines the wider socio-economic and politico-cultural context within which this decline is said to have occurred, highlighting the changing nature and landscape of crime and its ever deepening recalcitrance to precise measurement. With a view towards reframing the ‘crime decline’ discourse a more accurate account of crime and harm is provided by drawing upon an ontologically grounded harm perspective. In doing so attention is drawn to a range of non- criminalised harms that do immeasurable damage to the wider social body yet remain absent from the optimistic claims of statistical reductions in crime. Moreover, in what marks a positive contribution towards the development of an empirically robust and theoretically persuasive account of the purported ‘crime decline’, a new empirically informed theoretical framework is advanced. Utilising this new framework this thesis may begin to explain why, despite its lack of aetiological affirmation, the ‘crime decline’ discourse has been so readily accepted. It is concluded that crime may not have simply ‘declined’ but mutated in ways that current indicators have been unable to capture. Ultimately, it is argued that rather than taking undue comfort in baseless claims of optimism we must participate in a gesture of refusal to enjoy the comforting myth of the ‘crime decline’. 1 Justin Kotzé PhD Thesis Acknowledgements: I would like to start by acknowledging a huge debt of gratitude to my supervisory team, Professor Steve Hall, Professor Georgios Antonopoulos and Dr. Anqi Shen. Thank you all for your continuous and unfaltering support, encouragement, advice, guidance and understanding during this difficult but hugely rewarding process, you have all been instrumental in the completion of this thesis. Secondly, thanks must go to those who kindly agreed to take part in this research, your candidness and patience is deeply appreciated. I have been incredibly fortunate to have benefited from the kindness and expertise of a number of scholars at Teesside University. In particular I would like to thank Philip Whitehead, Simon Winlow, Avi Boukli, Anthony Lloyd, Robert Crow, Pauline Ramshaw, Louise Wattis and Georgios Papanicolaou. I would also like to thank my fellow PhD students David Temple, Kevin Price and Eileen Barker whose friendship and support have been invaluable and without whom the PhD experience would undoubtedly have been a lesser one. Finally, I must extend my deepest gratitude to my wife Claire. You are my sternest critic and most avid supporter and without you this thesis and the greatest moments in my life would not have been possible. Words fail to convey my appreciation and any attempt to do so would fall hopelessly short, so all I can offer is thank you. 2 Justin Kotzé PhD Thesis Contents: Abstract ............................................................................................................. 1 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... 2 List of Figures and Tables................................................................................ 5 Introduction: A Picture in Search of a New Frame ......................................... 6 Structure and Content ...................................................................................... 9 Chapter One – Literature Review: Constructing the Statistical Quilt for the Comfortable Dream: Exploring the ‘International Crime Decline’ .............. 15 The International Crime Victims Survey ......................................................... 18 Practical Limitations and Methodological Issues of the ICVS ........................ 21 Reframing the ‘International Crime Decline’ Discourse .................................. 31 Criminal Obsolescence and the Mutation of Crime ........................................ 34 Constructing the Statistical Quilt .................................................................... 43 Chapter Two: Research Context .................................................................... 47 Contextualising Lake Town ............................................................................ 49 Neoliberalism and Economic Globalisation .................................................... 57 Globalising the Illicit ....................................................................................... 63 The ‘Glocal’ Connection ................................................................................. 69 Chapter Three: Invisible Crimes and Non-Criminalised Harms .................. 79 The Hidden Landscape of Global Crime ........................................................ 80 The Hidden Landscape of Everyday Crime ................................................... 82 Zemiology and the Exploration of Non-Criminalised Harms .......................... 90 Criminology or Zemiology? Yes, Please! ..................................................... 100 Finding ‘Harm’s’ Ontological Reality ............................................................ 103 Chapter Four: Research Methodology ........................................................ 109 Ontological and Epistemological Considerations ......................................... 109 Research Design and Methods ................................................................... 119 Research Process ....................................................................................... 128 3 Justin Kotzé PhD Thesis Chapter Five: Research Findings ................................................................ 139 ‘You Should Have Called it Skid Row’ ......................................................... 140 ‘The Frontline is All-Around’ ......................................................................... 146 ‘Well That’s Just Normal Now’ ..................................................................... 153 ‘You’ve Got Like Police Recorded Crime and Then You Have Crime’ ......... 159 ‘Crime’s Changing, it’s Evolving’ .................................................................. 162 ‘People Believe What They Want to Believe’ ............................................... 168 Chapter Six: Paradigmatic Dominance and Eyes Wide Shut: Beyond Positivism and Constructionism ................................................................. 175 Positivism and Constructionism ................................................................... 177 Critical Realism; Beyond Positivism and Constructionism ........................... 181 The Turn to Speculative Realism and Transcendental Materialism ............. 186 Managed Deaptation through the Pseudo-Pacification Process .................. 194 Chapter Seven: Dreaming Comfortably: Theorising the ‘Crime Decline’ and Modernity’s Dream Myth ....................................................................... 203 Analysing Modernity’s Dream Myth ............................................................. 204 The Myth-Sustaining Dream ........................................................................ 206 The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’ ................................................................... 211 A Multipurpose Dream Myth ........................................................................ 216 Degrees of Assimilation ............................................................................... 219 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 229 References..................................................................................................... 242 Appendices.................................................................................................... 284 Appendix 1: World map showing countries (excluding Europe) that have participated in the ICVS at least once between 1989 and 2010 .................. 284 Appendix 2: World map showing European countries that have participated in the ICVS at least once between 1989 and 2010 .......................................... 285 Appendix 3: World map showing available ICVS trend data from countries that have participated in at least three sweeps of the ICVS between 1989 and 2010 ............................................................................................................. 286 4 Justin Kotzé PhD Thesis List of Figures and Tables: Figure 1: The ‘Crime Decline’ Tunnel of Vision………………………………..39 Figure 2: Technology-Mediated Criminal Transference ………………………42 Table 1: The
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