ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by considering historical and ideological aspects of the class and crime controversy. It introduces some basic ideas used in the social scientific study of the causes of crime. The chapter focuses on the controversy surrounding the role class plays in the causation of crime. There are both scientific and ideological reasons to carefully consider the modern linkage drawn between class and crime in the concept of the underclass. Prominent theories of crime also emphasize the harsh class circumstances experienced by poor and even more desperate segments of the population, and these theories causally connect these adverse class conditions with serious crime. Although ethnographic studies often take for granted that an association exists between class and crime, recent work of this type has more systematically established ways in which the relationship might operate. Several recent ethnographies provide accounts that are consistent with the formulation of the relationship between crime, poverty, and unemployment.
