Social inequality and crime control

This article discusses social inequality and crime control. Our analysis finds no evidence that police force strength is related to the degree of inequality in the distribution of a city's income. This finding does not support the assertions of conflict theory. Our finding should come as no surprise to those familiar with the history of social conflict in twentieth-century America. Outside the South and Southwest, the police have not regularly contained nonracially-related attempts to alter the distribution of income since the union organizing drives of the 193O's. Since then, a combination of market forces, welfare subsidies, and taxation has regulated the distribution of income, with the role of police primarily limited to the control of theft. As to race, our analysis confirms the existence of a moderately strong relationship between race and police force strength, but only in the South before 1970. This relationship probably reflects the instrumental use of the police by politically dominant whites to perpetuate the subordination of blacks. Outside the South, the relationship between race and police force strength was weak except between 1960 and 1970. The availability of the National Guard and Army for intervention in urban disorders may have made it possible for non-Southern cities to avoid drastic increases in police forces during that decade. (September 1985)