Table Of Content“Kotzé theoretically and rigorously skewers the myth of the ‘crime decline’
as a ‘baseless assertion built on insufficient data’. In doing so he punctures
liberal, dream-like notions of ‘better angels of our nature’ exercising some
mystical and ameliorating influence on the harm that is still so catastroph-
ically caused by our underlying social and economic system and the toxic
subjectivity that it creates. Beautifully written and intellectually challenging,
it also serves to remind every Criminologist of the debt that we now and will
continue to owe to Ultra Realism for re-invigorating a discipline that was
theoretically atrophied”.
—Professor Emeritus David Wilson, Centre for Applied
Criminology, Birmingham City University
“Justin Kotzé does what few criminologists are willing to do these days. He
pushes past the cloying sensitivities of contemporary social science to offer an
admirably honest account of the genuine problems that continue to blight our
most impoverished and disorderly boroughs … he carefully and convincingly
dismantles the crime decline narrative. Compelling stuff”.
—Professor Simon Winlow, Northumbria University
“In The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’, Justin Kotzé carefully unpicks one of the
predominant narratives of mainstream criminology. Using cutting edge so-
cial theory and original data, this book demands that we move beyond pos-
itivism or constructionism as explanatory frameworks for our contemporary
condition and examine the complexity of a criminological reality that is far
from static. Kotzé draws us into a rapidly changing criminological landscape,
illustrating how adaptive and new forms of crime are facilitated by technolog-
ical advances, rendering the creaking mechanisms of crime surveys and many
categories of crime and deviance obsolete. Beneath the statistical radar, and
against a backdrop of socioeconomic precarity, these new forms of criminality
are often entrepreneurial, ruthless and effective, resulting in a range of invisible
and unmeasured harms. This book is essential reading, and an antidote to the
orthodoxy of optimism that has paralysed the social sciences in recent years”.
—Dr Oliver Smith, Reader in Criminology,
Plymouth University
The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’
The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’ seeks to critically interrogate the supposed
statistical decline of crime rates, thought to have occurred in a number of
predominantly Western countries over the past two decades. Whilst this
trend of declining crime rates seems profound, serious questions need to be
asked. Data sources need to be critically interrogated, and context needs to
be provided. This book seeks to do just that.
This book examines the wider socio-economic and politico-cultural con-
text within which this decline in crime is said to have occurred, highlighting
the changing nature and landscape of crime and its ever deepening resistance
to precise measurement. By drawing upon original qualitative research and
cutting-edge criminological theory, this book offers an alternative view of the
reality of crime and harm. In doing so it seeks to reframe the ‘crime decline’
discourse and provide a more accurate account of this puzzling contemporary
phenomenon. Additionally, utilising a new theoretical framework developed
by the author, this book begins to explain why the ‘crime decline’ discourse
has been so readily accepted.
Written in an accessible yet theoretical and informed manner, this book is a
must-read for academics and students in the fields of criminology, sociology,
social policy and the philosophy of social sciences.
Justin Kotzé is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at
Teesside University. He was awarded his PhD in 2016 and has previously
published work in the fields of ex-prisoner reintegration and the historical
sublimation of violence. Justin is the co-editor of Zemiology: Reconnecting
Crime and Social Harm (2018).
Routledge Studies in Crime and Society
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Robin Maria Valeri and Kevin Borgeson
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A Global, Multidisciplinary Account
Edited by Steven Caldwell Brown and Thomas J. Holt
Offender and Victim Networks in Human Trafficking
Ella Cockbain
Mothering and Desistance in Re-Entry
Venezia Michalsen
Cyber-risk and Youth
Digital Citizenship, Privacy and Surveillance
Michael Adorjan and Rosemary Ricciardelli
Gun Studies
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Politics, Policy, and Practice
Edited by Jennifer Carlson, Harel Shapira and Kristin A. Goss
The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’
Exploring Change and Continuity in Crime and Harm
Justin Kotzé
Execution by Family
A Theory of Honor Violence
Mark Cooney
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Crime-and-Society/book-series/RSCS
The Myth of the ‘Crime
Decline’
Exploring Change and Continuity in Crime
and Harm
Justin Kotzé
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Justin Kotzé
The right of Justin Kotzé to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kotzé, Justin, author.
Title: The myth of the “crime decline” : exploring change and
continuity in crime and harm / Justin Kotzé.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058387 | ISBN 9780815353935 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781351134590 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Crime. | Crime prevention.
Classification: LCC HV6025 .K68 2019 | DDC 364.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058387
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5393-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-13459-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
The book is dedicated to my mother and late father,
Gill and André Kotzé.
Contents
List of figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: a picture in search of a new frame 1
A note on methodology 3
Structure and content 6
1 Constructing the statistical quilt for the comfortable
dream: exploring the ‘international crime decline’ 10
The international crime victims survey 12
Practical limitations and methodological issues of the ICVS 15
Reframing the ‘international crime decline’ discourse 22
Criminal obsolescence and the mutation of crime 25
Constructing the statistical quilt 32
2 Context is everything 35
Contextualising Lake Town 35
Neoliberalism and economic globalisation 41
Globalising the illicit 45
The ‘glocal’ connection 50
3 Invisible crimes and non-criminalised harms 58
The hidden landscape of global crime 59
The hidden landscape of everyday crime 60
Zemiology and the exploration of non-criminalised harms 66
Criminology or zemiology? Yes, please! 73
Finding ‘harm’s’ ontological reality 76
