Crime and the Family
In: Socialist review: SR, Band 19, Heft 1, S. 123-129
ISSN: 0161-1801
While conservatives have gained control over family policy issues in the 1980s, the Left's response has been one of lassitude, even though there remains a great deal that progressives could do to break the Right's hold on family issues. There has recently been an enormous revival of interest in the role played by the family in causing crime, mostly among conservative researchers whose message is that family disorganization breeds crime, with individual blame often placed on the mother. If progressives are to be involved in formulating & implementing crime prevention policies, they too will have to focus on the family, considering the social factors that generate family problems. One way to loosen the Right's grip on family issues & simultaneously become more involved in criminal justice policy is to concentrate on women & crime. The causes of female crime are related to both poverty & the family & can therefore be addressed through more progressive family policies. The best strategy may be to focus on issues of incarcerated women. Various approaches to this issue & the dangers inherent in them are considered. Bringing the issues of women & crime to center stage would contribute to policies that could alleviate both crime & gender inequality. F. S. J. Ledgister