Social context of crime control: a time-series analysis of the Korean case, 1973–2002

Abstract

Regardless of recent attempts to explain crime control in relation to its social structural conditions, few studies have assessed the economic, organizational, and political context of crime control simultaneously. This study integrated these three contexts into a single project to test the relevance of social structural explanations on major crime control practices over the past three decades in South Korea. By using a variety of official statistics, time-series regressions were used. The level of crime consistently explained most variation in the arrest rates for all four categories of crimes. Prosecutions also seemed to be closely responsive to the level of crime. However, the link between crime and incarceration rates was not found for all categories of crimes. This finding indicates that levels of incarceration could be determined by external factors such as the economic conditions, organizational capacity, and political climates. In addition, economic conditions, which were measured by the unemployment rate, appeared to have a strong relationship to all crime control practices; it was positively and statistically significant for arrest, prosecution and incarceration rates. Political repression was inversely related to all three practices. However, organizational capacity only seemed to affect incarceration rates. Failure or inconsistencies of some of the social contexts in explaining crime control practice in South Korea can be assessed in both methodological and substantive grounds. This underscores the need to develop more solid theoretical arguments and empirical measures for their roles in crime control.

Punishment and Economic Inequality: Estimating Short-Term and Long-Term Equilibrium Relationships

“…Although there were relatively few time-series studies, economic inequality appeared to have more significant effects in the United States (Jacobs & Helms, 1996Kim & Batton, 2009). Using Korean data from 1973 to 2002, Joo and Yoon (2008) found non-supportive results for the relationship between the Gini index and imprisonment rates for specific crime types.…”

The Use of K-Nearest Neighbour Approach for Crime Rate Prediction in Public Universities: Case Study Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba–Akoko (AAUA), Ondo State, Nigeria

“…Since crime rate is increasing in Nigeria Universities, there is a need for a preventive technological approach to solve the challenge (Chung et al 2012). This is because it has a direct impact on the student's quality of life as well as indirect consequences on the university image (Joo, 2012). The effective and practical approach to crime prevention is based on how to know in advance when, where, and what crimes will occur and who will commit them and why.…”

Economic change and violence in cross-national, regional, and local perspectives

“…In the English-language literature the analysis of young males and crime is currently also very limited. Indeed, two recent empirical studies of crime in Korea do not even include young male population percentages in analytical models (Joo and Yoon 2008;Yoon and Joo 2005). And there might be good comparative reason for not including young males in these analytical models; in 2004, only 18.5 per cent of homicide suspects in Korea were under the age of 30, while in America, for comparison, the percentage of homicide suspects for a similar age range was 57.2 per cent (see Johnson 2004).…”

“…Some argue this crime boom was especially prevalent in the industrialized world (Fukuyama 1999), while others find evidence that booms in violence were limited to industrializing nations (LaFree and Drass 2002). More recent research explores the increase in violence in select groups of nations undergoing political and economic transitions, for example in the former Soviet Union (Pridemore and Kim 2006), the former Eastern Bloc nations (Karstedt 2003;Stamatel 2008;) as well as East Asian nations undergoing rapid economic change (Liu 2005;Joo 2003;Joo and Yoon 2008).…”