The Root Causes of Crime; R. J. Bidinotto

A Matter of Principle / by Robert James Bidinotto The "Root Causes" of Crime S ince 1960, p~r capita ~rim~ rates h~ve more than tnpled, whIle violent crUDe rates have nearly quintupled. By any mea sure, we live in a nation much less safe than that in which our parents grew up. This simply cries out for an explanation. What in our modern society could possibly account for the sudden and explosive growth in force, fraud, and coercion? Liberals typically posit socioeconomic factors, such as poverty. Yet how can we attribute the rising tide of violence to rising poverty, when the periods of fastest crime growth have been during times of rapidly rising American wealth? This popular "explanation" also fails on comparative grounds. Why is the richest nation on earth experiencing increases in predatory behavior that vastly exceed crime rates in much poorer nations? Why now, at a time of relative abundance and wealth, instead of during impoverished times past say, during our Great Depression? And why after decades of dumping trillions of dollars into programs to eradicate privation, hun ger, illiteracy, insecurity, disease, homeless ness-the alleged "root causes" of crime?

Liberal explanations for crime that blame psychological or biological factors also fall Mr. Bidinotto, a StajfWriter for Reader's Digest, is a longtime contributor to The Freeman and lecturer at FEE seminars. Criminal Justice? The Legal System Versus Individual Responsibility, edited by Mr. Bidi notto and published by FEE, is available at $29.95 in cloth and $19.95 in paperback. flat. Why, for example, would there have been an abrupt leap in mental illness or genetic defects starting in 1962,when crime rates began to take off? However, I must also challenge a com mon conservative explanation for rising crime: blaming it on the welfare state. Though a governmental "safety net" of sorts has existed since the New Deal, the modern American welfare state wasn't en acted into law until the Great Society, and didn't begin to make its impact felt until the end of the 1960s. Yet crime rates began to soar before that-in the early 1960s. How can we attribute rising crime to a welfare state which didn't then exist?

Second, criminalbehavior patterns start in youth, peaking in the late teen years. What ever caused crime to explode in the 1960s would have had to been planted in young people during their formative years: in the 1950s. Where was the 1950s welfare state? Third, many nations have had welfare states far longer than America, yet have crime rates far lower than ours. Why? Finally, U.S. crime rates have begun in recent years to level out, even decline a bit. Has there been any corresponding decline in welfare statism to "cause" this? Clearly not. These liberal and conservative explana tions for criminality share a common root: they blame factors outside the criminal him self. Liberals say' 'poverty made him do it." Conservatives say "welfare checks made him do it." Both share the false premise of economic determinism. 371 372 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1995 It is more fruitful to ask not" What causes crime?" but "What causes us not to commit crimes?" Social scientists posit two rea sons: what they refer to as "external and internal constraints on behavior."

External constraints are deterrents. We don't commit crimes for fear of negative consequences, or punishments. Internal constraints, by contrast, are what we used to call "conscience." Most people accept certain moral standards; and when we vio late those standards, we feel guilty about it. Our guilt feelings inhibit us from com mitting crimes-even when we think we can get away with them. My view-spelled out in Criminal Jus tice?-is that crime has increased because of a systematic erosion in recent decades of both external and internal constraints on behavior. Deterrence has been weakened, while conscience has been deadened. Consider, first, the undermining of deter rence. For half a century, utilitarian pre scriptions for crime control amounted to givingendless" second chances" tojuvenile criminals, repeated probationary sentences to adult felons, and speedy releases to the relative few who landed behind bars.

In 1949the U.S. Supreme Court declared that retribution was "no longer the domi nant objective of the criminal law," but should be replaced by "reformation and rehabilitation." Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, in his inftuential1970 book, Crime in America, declared that "Punish ment as an end in itself is itself a crime in our times. . . . Rehabilitation must be the goal of modem corrections. Every other consid eration should be subordinated to it." And so it was. The odds of punishment for a given crime have fallen sharply over the past 30 years. Today, a person who commits a serious crime has a better than 98 percent chance of avoiding prison. And thanks to early parole and generous "good time" allowances, the typical inmate serves only a third of his court-imposed sentence. The undermining of external constraints is only a part of the problem. More impor tant is the erosion of internal constraints.

Most of us go about our daily business with a secure sense of routine. We walk past co-workers, sit with family members, wait in grocery store lines, seldom giving a thought to our personal safety. But imagine what it would be like to live in a world in which all these people suddenly, inexplica bly, violently turned on you. In such a jungle, human life would become impossi ble. We would live like animals; our oper ative premise would no longer be "live and let live," but "kill or be killed." We have not yet reached that stage, but the signs of social deterioration are unmis takable (see my March column, "Cultural Pollution' '). More and more people act like speeding vehicles without steering wheels or brakes, leaving in their wake a growing trail of bloodshed and destruction. A moral code is the source of "internal constraints on behavior." It is the rudder of any culture, which keeps it from crash ing against the shoals of violence, and sink ing into chaos. Yet modern intellectuals, wedded to relativism, have not only aban doned the helm of moral leadership: they assault anyone who dares to assume it.

Their normative vandalism has been so complete that today, even to use words such as "morality," "conscience," or "virtue," invites mockery and the rolling of eyes. These intellectuals have virtually obliter ated all external and internal constraints. As utilitarians, they have undermj ned deter rence. As relativists, they have eliminated guilt. They have thus unleashed the socio paths we see around us-savages who act with impunity, and without conscience. We rightfully expect our justice system to impose external constraints on those lacking internal constraints. But we can never hire enough police, or build enough prisons, if our underlying moral crisis is not addressed. The real roots of criminality lie in the moral abdication occurring in our homes, commu nities, and institutions. Restoring moral direction is not a job we dare delegate to politicians. Rather, if our culture is to survive, we ourselves must begin to uphold, fight for, and inculcate the values and standards upon which any civi lization rests. D The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533 Tel. (914) 591-7230 Fax (914) 591-8910 June 1995 Affirmative Action I n the strange world of politics and power, one agency of government inflicts economic harm on the public, another seeks to alleviate it. One raises the costs of construction through labor laws or zoning restrictions, another seeks to offset the raises through con struction grants, low-interest loans, and subsidized rents. Federallegislation erects employment barriers for minori ties, such as the Davis-Bacon Act and minimum wage laws, other programs seek to give assistance to the victims.

The Federal Reserve System depreciates the dollar through inflation and credit expansion, other departments mean to rescue it by regulating and controlling the people. Affirmative Action does both; it inflicts economic harm and then seeks to alleviate it. It professes to promote the economic conditions and opportunities of so-called underprivileged minorities and simultaneously erects new, formida ble barriers for the people it sets out to benefit. It bestows special favors through the apparatus of politics but also handicaps its beneficiaries through economic restrictions and mandates. The civil rights legislation of the 1960s launched the Affirmative Action pro gram. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted protected status according to race and sex; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 extended the protection to the elderly. Later amend ments to the act further broadened government authority in all matters of dis crimination. The 1964 Act created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and charged it with investigating complaints. The Commission cannot enforce its findings, but can ask the Department of Justice to sue a discriminating individual or firm.

It receives and analyzes many thousands of complaints every year. The EEOC budget is rising steadily, now exceeding $250 million a year. The rise can have only two explanations: either discrimination has grown worse since Affirmative Action was launched or the Commission is making a show of discrimination in order to justify its own bureaucratic growth. Whatever it may be, the agents of EEOC are personally interested in an aggravation of discrimi nation. Commission guidelines aim to ensure that every employer hire a proper per centage of minority people that comprise the labor force in the community. Where the population is preponderantly black, a company is expected to employ a cor responding percentage of blacks; in a Spanish-speaking locale it must engage the proper percentage of Hispanic work ers. EEOC policies accomplish the very opposite of what they set out to achieve. By forcing employers to hire workers according to ethnicity rather than pro ductivity EEOC created an exodus of business from the inner cities. After all, there are few skilled workers in the inner cities but many uneducated and untrained minority workers subsisting on public assistance. To escape from EEOC mandates, many companies promptly located new plants and stores in largely white communities.

Companies with inner-city facilities quickly close them as soon as they suffer losses, blaming old equipment or foreign competition. Every observer knows full well that they are escaping the labor mandates of EEOC. The Commission inflicts immeasur able economic harm also on women while it professes to defend and promote their interests. It spearheads the move ment of "comparable worth," which merely is a new version of the "just price" doctrine of ages past. Rejecting most market considerations of income, it elaborates rights and privileges defined and granted by legislators and regula tors. In the labor market a house painter or plumber may have a higher income than a librarian with a Master's degree. In the judgment of consumers, they render more valuable services than the librari an. But, according to EEOC, this is sexu al discrimination! The Commission ranks jobs and income according to a complicated point system based on years of schooling and training, the number of academic degrees, hours of work, etc.

The points then are run through a com puter which invariably arrives at sexual discrimination and employer greed and guilt. EEOC policies obviously rest on an old elitist contempt for manual labor, especially dirty and dangerous labor, and an astonishing bias for college degrees. The economic world of individ ual freedom and the private property order actually does not pay for academic degrees, it only rewards services ren dered. Whenever education makes a person more productive in rendering marketable services, it tends to yield higher personal incomes. After many years of training, the heart surgeon is likely to earn a good income. Whenever education does not impart productivity and usefulness, it may make a person learned and wise, but does not assure a high income. The brilliant scholar of Sanskrit or the astronomer studying the Aurora Borealis may not improve his earnings capacity. In a free society he is free to pursue his interests to his heart's content, but he cannot command an income similar to that of the surgeon who is saving human lives.

Many scholars and scientists who choose and love their lifestyles covet the incomes of others. Envy and covetous ness make them join the enemies of the market order and call for redistribution of other people's income by political force. Lamenting the "unfair" distribu tion of incomes, some readily condemn the enterprise system while they extol the virtues of the political command sys tem. Affirmative Action inflicts harm on the elderly. The Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) meant to make it easier for elderly people to qualify for pensions. Unfortunately, as in all cases of political interference in economic life, the Act brought about the very opposite of what it meant to achieve. Its costly funding requirements immediately caused the liquidation of nearly 30 percent of all pri vate pension plans and prevented the launching of countless others. ERISA rules make employers think twice before they launch a pension program. After all, pension funds now may seize up to 30 percent of a company's net worth to satisfy employee claims. Pension liabili ties have the same status as tax liens, they are senior to all other claims.

As ERISA mandates raise the cost of labor, they tend to depress take-home pay and fringe benefits. If these are rigid and cost adjustments are resisted or pre vented for any reason, the ERISA man dates actually cause unemployment. For many elderly workers ERISA actually erected another barrier to employment, the very springhead of pensions. False labor doctrines have given rise to the Affirmative Action program. Millions of Americans whom it was sup posed to benefit are its primary victims. Their suffering manifests anew that political power wrings much evil. It pol lutes whatever it touches. -~~ Hans F. Sennholz NEVER, EVER to be printed again Bound Volumes of The Freeman 1976-1993 As long as the supplies last N o one reprints old magazines; we are no exception. Each volume contains some 100 essays and articles on important social and economic issues of our time. They build on eternal principles which never change and which make these value-packed volumes collections of timeless truth. They are impor tant additions to every man's library.

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