The Invention of Permanent Poverty: No. 34. (Choice in Welfare S.) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Crime is caused by poverty and unemployment! If poverty increases, then so too does crime. Such is the conclusion of the 'no-fault' theory of crime that holds sway among the social-affairs intelligentsia. In The Invention of Permanent Poverty Norman Dennis rebuts the central assumptions of 'no-fault' theory. He focuses his criticism on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, whose Inquiry Into Income and Wealth of 1995 exemplifies 'no-fault' theory at its worst.
Norman Dennis reveals the flaws in the oft-repeated claim that 'the poor have been getting poorer'. Using the very same statistical sources as the poverty lobbies, he demolishes the claim that there has been an increase in poverty. In doing so, he reveals the statistical manoeuvres they typically deploy to substantiate their false claims.
More importantly, he takes apart the theory that crime is caused by poverty and unemployment. Poverty was decreasing in absolute and relative terms between 1961-79, but crime was increasing. Dennis also points out that earlier periods which saw high unemployment and a greater degree of absolute poverty were not characterised by social disorder, for example the 1930s and the last part of the nineteenth century.
Among the chief causes of rising crime, Dennis argues, has been the decline of the family and, in particular, the abandonment of the assumption that a man should make a lifelong commitment to marriage and parenthood. Crimes are not being committed by the downtrodden poor 'with no stake in society', but by young men who are being allowed to perpetuate their childhood long beyond the time when they should be taking on the responsibilities of fatherhood.

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