1. Crime, Politics and Inequality: Exploring the Long-term Impacts of 'Thatcherism'
Stephen Farrall (CCR, Sheffield Univ).
6th July 2017, BSC Conference 2017 Sheffield Hallam Univ.

2. Outlining today’s talk
Main findings from earlier ESRC-funded project exploring changes in social and economic policies and crime.
Looking ahead to recently-started ESRC-funded project exploring the above at t the individual level.

3. Figure 1: Property Crime Per Capita (Home Office Recorded Statistics and BCS)
Thatcher’s period in office
Major’s period in office

4. Which policies are we most interested in?
Economic policies
Housing policies
Social security (esp. after 1986)
Education policies (esp. after 1988)

5. Economic Changes
During the 1970s there was a move away from the commitment to Keynesian policies and full employment.
Dramatic economic restructuring overseen by Thatcher governments.
Consequently, levels of unemployment rose through the 1980s (see Fig 2).

6. Figure 2: Unemployment Rate (%), 1970-2006
Thatcher’s period in office
Major’s period in office

7. Economic Changes
This in turn led to increases in levels of inequality (Figure 3), augmented by changes in taxation policies which favoured the better off.

8. Figure 3: Income Inequality (Gini coefficient), 1970-2006
Thatcher’s period in office
Major’s period in office

9. The Economy and Crime in Post-War Britain
Time series analyses for Farrall and Jennings (2013 CBH) find statistically significant relationships for:
1: the unemployment rate on the rate of property crime (consistent with other studies),
2: we also find that the crime-economy link strengthened during this period.
3: (economic inequality just outside bounds of significance).

10. Housing Policy
1980 Housing Act (+ others): created RTB – saw a huge rise in owner-occupation.
Created residualisation of council housing; transient/marginalised residents with low levels of employment (Murie, 1997).
This in turn led to a re-distribution of domestic property crime such that social renters experienced more of it than owners (Farrall et al 2016 BJC).

11. Social Security 1980-1985: Some tinkering with the DHSS.
1986 Social Security Act based on Fowler Review.
Following this payments reduced for many individual benefits claimants (whilst total spend increased due to unemployment).

12. Social Security
Evidence to suggest that reductions in government expenditure are associated with rises in crime during the 1980s (Reilly and Witt, 1992).
Jennings et al (IJLCJ 2012) suggest that increases in welfare spending is associated with declines in the property crime rate.

13. Education
Changes in education policies encouraged schools to exclude children in order to improve place in league tables.
Exclusions rose during the 1990s, reaching a peak of 12,668 in

14. Education
Dumped on the streets this fuelled ASB (Home Office RDS Occ. Paper No. 71).
The BCS shows sudden jump of people reporting “teens hanging around” to be a problem from an average of 8% before 2001 to 30% after 2002.
School exclusions helped to create Labour’s discourse of ASB and need for C&DA 1998.

15. What happened to crime (etc)?
Rise in crime (Fig 4). This was generally rising before 1979, but the rate of increase picked up after early 1980s and again in early 1990s.
Fear of crime rises (tracks recorded crime rates, Fig 5).
Levels of punitive sentiment rise (tracks recorded crime rates, Fig 6).

16. Figure 4: Property Crime Per Capita (Home Office Recorded Statistics and BCS)

17. Figure 5: Percentage worried about crime (BCS 1982-2005)

18. Fig 6: Punitive opinion* (excluding the death penalty) and recorded crime in England and Wales,
*Based on eight CSE&W and BSAS items relating to sentencing, CJS doing a good job, obeying the law (but excluding those relating to the death penalty).

19. Developments post-1993 Howard (Home Sec 1993-97) talks and acts tough.
Prison population rises immediately; rise in average sentence lengths.
Due also to stricter enforcement and mandatory minimum sentences (aimed at burglars and drug traffickers).
Prison population grew by 2.5% p.a. from 1945 to 1995, but by 3.8% p.a (MoJ, 2009: 4).

20. Thatcher’s CJS Legacy

21. More ways of being punitive
Thatcher’s CJS Legacy
Empty!
More ways of being punitive

22. Labour Party’s Response
Move to the political right.
‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’.
Focus on ‘young offenders’ (Sch Exclusions related to?).
Did not oppose Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 despite it being quite draconian (‘3 strikes’, minimum mandatory sentences).

23. New Project: Exploring Individual-Level Experiences.
Via the re-analysis of birth cohort studies:
The National Child Development Study
The Birth Cohort Study

24. Outline of NCDS (1958) National sample. N = 17,733
Every child born in one week in March 1958.
Interviews with parents, teachers, cohort members themselves, their spouses/children
Test and medical data too.
Interviews in 58; 65; 69; 74; 81; 91; 99; 04; 08; 12.

25. Outline of BCS70 (1970) National sample. N = 16,135
Every child born in one week in April 1970.
Interviews with parents, teachers, cohort members themselves and their children.
Test and medical data too.
Interviews in 70; 75; 80; 86; 92; 96; 99; 04; 08; 12.

26. Key Research Foci Impact on housing and employment careers
Social security and Schooling policies
How these influenced offending, victimisation and punitive sentiments
Combines ideas from historical and constructivist institutoionalism and life-course perspectives.

27. Do the sorts of policies which governments pursue …
Create issues which need to be attended to later (‘policies create politics’)?
Alter the sorts of opportunities open to individual members of society, and in so doing can alter the life courses of individual citizens?
An idea drawn from historical institutionalism
An idea drawn from the Life-course Perspective

28. Do the sorts of policies which governments pursue …
Affect the timings of key transition points and staging/stages of individual lives (e.g. commencement of family formation), and in so doing does this encourage some into offending or leave them at risk of victimization?
An idea drawn from the Life-course Perspective

29. Do the sorts of policies which governments pursue …
establish individual- AND national-level path dependencies which may become harder to ‘shrug-off’ as time persists?
Project runs April 2017 to March 2020.
An idea drawn from historical institutionalism
An idea drawn from the Life-course Perspective

30. Keeping in Touch Email newsletter (s.farrall@sheffield.ac.uk)
newsletter