1.2 Welfare state

• Welfarist Crime Policy

  The rise of the welfare state (1945 - 1980) means:

  • Public investment in public housing
  • Mass education policies
  • Extension of labour rights
  • Social security
  • Disciplinary institutions (schools, prisons, industries…).
• WELFARIST STATE

  There is a social deprivation or relative deprivation, which meant that individuals became delinquent  because they were deprived of: proper education, family socialization, job opportunities, proper treatment of their psychological problems. 
• WELFARIST STATE (III)

  Crime is seen as a social problem that the welfare state could engineer away through reducing poverty, inequalities (public housing, low-qualification jobs, social security, public education…).. The welfare state solution is individualised treatment, family support, welfare services,..
• Post-welfarist Crime Policy

  The coming of late modernity or post-Fordism (from 1980s onwards):

  • Post-Fordism (mass consumerism, globalisation, insecurity of employment).
  • Changes in the structure of families (increased rates of divorce, the movement of women into the paid labour force…).
  • Social impact of mass media (the generalisation of expectations and fears…).
  • Privatisation of social rights (the state reduces public spending: less public housing, education, etc.).
• The rise of the security state means:

  • Stressing crime control and situational prevention (less social policies)
  • Rational choice and desincentives
  • Incapacitation and punitive exclusion
  • 9/11 and the war on crime in a globalised society