Perceived Relative Deprivation as a Cause of Property Crime

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Abstract
Poverty has long been suspected as a root cause of crime, especially crime against property. Thus, members of the lower class have long been thought to commit the bulk of crime, at least as crime is defined by middle-class lawmakers. Absolute poverty, however, has been shown to be far less criminogenic than relative poverty. Therefore, lower-class crime against the middle and upper classes occurs most often where access to perceived middle-class values and lifestyles is most pronounced: in areas where large numbers of the relatively rich live near the relatively poor, or in areas of high media penetration, where more affluent lifestyles are constantly and widely depicted. Thus, much property crime is the product of cupidity, stimulated by easy access to information about "better" life styles. It is here postulated that the perception of one's relative depriva tion stimulates the tendency to commit property crime among all members of society and that this cannot be changed without a fundamental restruc turing of American institutions. One way to achieve this would be for the government to limit severely the transfer of wealth through generations and to use the revenues thus obtained to provide every member of society with an adequate base income. Since under such a system all individuals would have more nearly equal opportunity, perceived relative depriva tion, and thus property crime, would drop markedly.

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