The neoliberal view of crime and deviance is the argument that crime is the result of individual choice, so the state should respond with deterrence and punishment and not with welfare or attempts to change social conditions. It belongs to the wider politics of neoliberalism, which favours free markets, personal responsibility and a smaller role for the state in social provision.
What is the neoliberal view of crime and deviance?
Two ideas sit at the centre of this view. The first is that offenders are rational actors. They weigh the likely reward of a crime against the risk and cost of being caught, and they offend when the balance favours it. This is the logic of rational choice theory, applied to crime by the economist Gary Becker in 1968. The second is that responsibility rests with the individual. Poverty, poor schooling or a difficult upbringing may be acknowledged, but they are not accepted as explanations, because to explain a crime in that way would be to excuse it.
From these ideas follows a particular idea of what the state is for. Its task is to make crime costly. Neoliberal governments therefore tend to favour firmer policing, longer sentences and strict enforcement, while resisting spending on the social causes of crime, which they regard as inefficient or as rewarding failure.
How does the neoliberal view differ from other sociological explanations of crime?
It differs mainly in where it places the problem. Marxist accounts locate crime in the inequalities of capitalism, so that the law protects the powerful and the poor are criminalised. Functionalists see crime as a normal feature of society that reinforces shared values. Labelling theorists ask how people come to be defined as criminal at all. The neoliberal view starts from none of these questions. It asks only how to change the incentives facing a free individual, and it sets aside the question of why a person might be in the position to offend.
What are the main features of neoliberal crime control?
Sociologists who study neoliberal crime policy point to a recognisable set of practices. One is a greater use of imprisonment. Loic Wacquant argues in Punishing the Poor that as welfare is cut back, the state expands its penal arm to manage the people who have been left insecure by deregulated labour markets. A second is a move from treating offenders to managing risk. This is the shift described in the new penology, in which groups are classified and contained according to the danger they are thought to pose, with little attempt at reform.
A third feature is what David Garland calls responsibilisation. Governments accept that the police cannot control crime alone and then urge citizens, schools and businesses to protect themselves, through security devices, neighbourhood watch and insurance. Safety becomes something that individuals and communities must provide for themselves. A fourth is the willingness to open punishment to private business, most visibly through privately run prisons.
Examples of the neoliberal view of crime and deviance
The clearest example is zero tolerance policing, developed in New York in the 1990s from the broken windows thesis, in which minor disorder is dealt with firmly in the belief that it prevents more serious crime. Another is situational crime prevention, which tries to reduce opportunities through design and surveillance, such as CCTV and better lighting, and does not ask why people offend.
The Anti-Social Behaviour Orders introduced in Britain in 1998 are a further case. They brought conduct that was disruptive but often not criminal into the penal system, since breaching an order could lead to custody. American three strikes laws, which imposed long sentences on repeat offenders, apply the same deterrent logic.
What are the criticisms of the neoliberal view of crime and deviance?
The main criticism is that it treats crime as a matter of individual calculation and so overlooks structure. People do not choose their starting point, and those with the fewest legitimate opportunities are the most likely to be policed and imprisoned. Jeffrey Reiman argues in The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison that the justice system directs attention to street crime by poorer people and away from harms committed by the powerful, a point that can be explored further in the posts on white collar crime and corporate crime.
A second criticism is empirical. The evidence that harsh sentences deter is weak, and imprisonment often increases reoffending by cutting people off from work, housing and family. A third is that law and order can serve political purposes. Stuart Hall and colleagues showed in Policing the Crisis how fear of crime can be used to build support for authoritarian policy, an argument that connects to the study of moral panics.
Why does the neoliberal view of crime matter in sociology?
It matters because it shows that crime control is shaped by political economy. The same behaviour can be treated as a social problem, a medical problem or a matter of personal wrongdoing depending on the dominant ideology of the time. Seeing neoliberalism as one such ideology allows sociologists to ask who benefits from defining crime as individual failure, and what is left out when that definition is accepted. For the same perspective applied to other fields, see the neoliberal views of poverty and inequality.
