U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Income Inequality and Property Crime - A Cross-National Analysis of Relative Deprivation Theory

NCJ Number
94297
Journal
Criminology Volume: 22 Issue: 2 Dated: (May 1984) Pages: 229-257
Author(s)
S Stack
Date Published
1984
Length
29 pages
Annotation
Cultural issues that act as intervening variables in the inequality-crime relationship have been neglected in the literature on inequality and crime.
Abstract
The present article explores the interaction between inequality and variables thought to be associated with a perception that inequality is illegitimate. The central argument is that the strength of inequality-crime relationship is dependent on a contextual factor, a radical egalitarian culture promoting the view that inequality is illegitimate. Data on property crime from 62 nations are analyzed. The results generally indicate that neither inequality nor the interaction between inequality and egalitarian culture exerts independent effects on property crime. (Publisher abstract)