The myth of social class and crime revisited: An examination of class and adult criminality

Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is h ighest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematical ly the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population, The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequac ies of the class-crime research. Self-report data were collected front a ge neral population of adult residents in a large, midwestern city and were an alyzed to assess the effects of a wide range of class measures on crime mea sures. The overall results produced front a sample of 555 adults demonstrat ed that regardless of how class or crime were measured social class exerted little direct influence on adult criminality in the general population. Co nsistent with research findings from nonself-report studies, social class w as related to criminal involvement for nonwhites.