Socio-economic inequality as main cause of deviance and crime

Yakov Gilinskiy

Russia

 

Socio-economic Inequality as main Cause of Deviance and Crime

Abstract

 

According to many sociological theories the principal cause of deviance, including criminality, consists in a social and economic inequality (K. Marx, R. Merton, "Critical Criminology" and others). Contemporary empirical researches in Russia confirm this hypothesis.

The differentiation between the incomes of the 10% least prosperous and the 10% most prosperous increased from 1:4.5 in 1991 up to 1:15 in 1999 and 1:18 in 2005. There are the official data, but the opinion of experts is: the real difference of the incomes rise up to 23-25 and in Moscow up to 40-60 (Human Development Report in the Russian Federation 1999; Just and unjust Inequality in Contemporary Russia 2003).

The Gini index (i.e., index of economic inequality) in Russia increased from 0.289 in 1992 to 0.422 in 2007. According to S. Ol’kov (2004), during 1990-1999 the index was at its maximum in 1994 (0.409) and the number of homicides was at a maximum too (32,300); the index was at its lowest in 1990 (0.218) and the number of homicides was also lowest (15,600). 

According to I. Skifsky (2007), coefficient of correlation between trend of Gini index and trend of homicide during 1980-2004 is 0.9253; and between trend of Gini index and violence crime is 0.8433.

The class of the excluded constitutes the social basis for various forms of deviance including crime and organized crime (Gilinskiy, 2006).

About 30% of Russian population have income lower of official living wage (The World Bank, 2005). More than 50% of the Russian population is excluded (F. Borodkin, 2000).  There can be therefore Russia is high on the list in the world on rate (per 100,000 population) of murders, suicides, alcohol consumption.

 

 

 

 

 

Yakov Gilinskiy