ABSTRACT
The rapid rise in crime occurred as many social groups, including the new middle class, were being exposed to city life for the first time. Crime, many people assume; is irrational, dysfunctional, even pathological behaviour; it is a disease and just may be symptomatic of the malignancies of modern and/or urban life. If crime often does imply a rejection of or a protest against society or its norms, then it is obviously a political act on the part of the offender. But crime is also highly political from the vantage point of society. But the political nature of crime goes deeper than that, for crime by its very definition is political; it flows from political decisions as to what acts will be considered ‘criminal’ and, even more importantly, from decisions as to exactly who will be termed ‘criminal’.
