Analyze the correlation between family structure and crime. Share your findings and develop a proposal for necessary policy reform. You should design a strategy for a needed policy change in the areas of crime and justice. You will take the policy through the stages identified in the readings: from identification of problem, to construction of a solution, to lobbying, and finally to implementation. Complete at 5–6-page review of your proposal and process. 

Changes in Social Structure

Context: The changing economy of the 1970s and 1980s delivered more financially challenging times than in the previous decade. Not only was the public in a different place financially, but the social structure had also changed. For example, in 1941 fewer than 14% of married women worked outside the home. By 1980 more than half did because of financial demands and the restructuring of families. This distorted the traditional dynamics of family life and created a change in social forces that were previously at work. 

Divorce rates changed from 1 in 58 in the 1930s to 1 in 2.2 in the 1980s. Childcare outside the family became increasingly the norm. Parents spending time at work instead of at home created generations of latchkey kids. Teenagers were met with less adult supervision. Television became a babysitter and a tool for the media to target the young. Life is different in contemporary society than it was when traditional crime policy was developed. As a result, completely different demands are made upon the criminal justice system, and crime policy must efficiently meet those demands. We live in an information society that transcends previously established boundaries including culture, race, gender, and geography. The information age and technology have created limitless flows of money and information around the world. 

Social expectations evolved as middle-class affluence developed and ordinary people became financially sound. Luxuries of the rich became mainstream, and expectations rose. Luxuries previously reserved for the affluent, such as owning a home, owning a car, and being able to pass wealth to the next generation, became the norm. Even more than becoming mainstream, luxuries became what T. H. Marshall identified as “social rights.” This supports the theory introduced in Learning Topic 1 that suggests that crime is the result of the void between expectations and achievement.

Task Description: Analyze the correlation between family structure and crime. Share your findings and develop a proposal for necessary policy reform. You should design a strategy for a needed policy change in the areas of crime and justice. You will take the policy through the stages identified in the readings: from identification of problem, to construction of a solution, to lobbying, and finally to implementation. Complete at 5–6-page review of your proposal and process. 

 

Text:  Garland, David. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. (2001). University of Chicago Press.