Criminologists have despaired that modernization and crime are inseparable, but Japan has long been seen as an exception to the rule. In this book, the author finds that while it remains the case that crime reduction may come at some cost to individual autonomy, the "West" can learn from Japan to reduce the social harm of too much freedom. Instead of endless crime prevention programs through "social engineering," policy makers could pay more attention to sociological insights concerning responsibility, obligations and collective identities.
Author(s): Dag Leonardsen
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 248
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures and Tables......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
Part I Theoretical and Methodological Clarifications......Page 18
The negative case of Japan......Page 20
The Western welfare paradox......Page 21
The failure of sociology?......Page 24
The end of the state?......Page 25
Right and left reactions......Page 27
Value conflicts between economy and society......Page 29
Have socio-economic values gained the upper hand in Japanese society?......Page 32
Organization of this book......Page 37
2 Is Japan Really a Low-Crime Nation?......Page 39
A theoretical comment on comparative analysis: On emic and etic concepts and the social construction of crime......Page 40
The social construction of crime statistics......Page 46
Crime in the private sphere – how big is the iceberg?......Page 50
White collar crime – extensive but impossible to validate and compare......Page 52
What do statistics tell us?......Page 55
What do criminological scholars tell us?......Page 59
What does popular information on Japan tell us?......Page 62
Defining the field: narrowing the concept of crime......Page 63
Organized crime as a methodological challenge......Page 64
Economic equality and low unemployment rates – alternative explanations to little crime?......Page 66
3 Why Has Modernization in the West Been Synonymous with Increased Crime? Is Rapid Social Change Synonymous with Loss of Moral Sentiments and Loss of Community?......Page 74
Social disruption as the consequence of structural changes......Page 77
Social disruption as the consequence of cultural and moral decay......Page 92
Part II Japan as a Low-Crime Nation......Page 102
Introduction......Page 104
On the definition of culture......Page 105
Japan: a country that needs 'thick description'......Page 107
Introduction......Page 176
Crime as the result of social exclusion......Page 180
Crime as the result of cultural values and individual choice......Page 187
Is there a lesson to be learnt from Japan?......Page 191
Notes......Page 206
References......Page 229
C......Page 239
G......Page 240
K......Page 241
S......Page 242
W......Page 243
Z......Page 244
