Explaining Long Term Trends in Violent Crime
Gurr and others have demonstrated that the long-term development of homicide rates in Europe follows a U-shaped curve : There is a fairly steady (though non-linear) decline since the 17th century (or even earlier, in some regions) till the middle of the 20th century, and a fairly steady increase sin...
Gorde:
| Argitaratua izan da: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/chs, |
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| Egile nagusia: | |
| Formatua: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Hizkuntza: | Anglais |
| Argitaratua: |
Crime, Histoire & Sociétés
2009
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| Sarrera elektronikoa: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Gaia: | Gurr and others have demonstrated that the long-term development of homicide rates in Europe follows a U-shaped curve : There is a fairly steady (though non-linear) decline since the 17th century (or even earlier, in some regions) till the middle of the 20th century, and a fairly steady increase since the 1960s. It is tentatively assumed in this article that the increase in the second half of the 20th century does not indicate a temporary deviation from the long-term trend but rather a trend reversal. Thus, a theory propounded to explain aggregated homicide rates must account for the secular decline and for the presumed increase as well. It is argued in this paper that Elias 's theory of the processes of civilization and Durkheim's theory on social differentiation and moral development offer a good starting point for constructing such a theoretical account. Based on an analysis of German crime data (1898-1902) some empirical evidence is presented to support Durkheim's hypothesis that the decline of violence follows from the erosion of « collectivism ». |
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