CRIME AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE US ECONOMY - A RECONSIDERATION OF THE CLASS LINKAGES

Researchers have speculated that dislocations in the class structure p roduced by recent economic restructuring are responsible for a variety of social problems, including crime. However, attempts to demonstrate a causal link between restructuring and crime have been only partiall y successful. We attribute the lack of progress in this area to the na rrow focus on the impact of unemployment, the neglect of meso-level cl ass structures, and the failure to conceptualize and empirically model the temporal and spatial dimensions of restructuring. This article ex tends contributions from the historical perspective on social structur es of accumulation and collective-action frame theory to provide a mor e complete understanding of the class linkages between economic restru cturing and crime. Hypotheses derived from these two models are tested with a pooled, cross-sectional, time-series analysis of the state-lev el determinants of violent-crime, property-mime, and total crime rates . Results indicate that when properly examined across time and space, unemployment has ifs expected positive impact on total crime rate and property-crime rate. Findings also suggest that net of the effects of unemployment and traditional predictors, class factors operating at th e mesolevel (employer tactics and labor organization) influence proper ty-mime and total crime rates by framing perceptions of class adversar ies and agency.