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Revisiting nations not obsessed with crime

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Abstract

This paper reanalyzes the ten low-crime countries featured in Freda Adler’s 1983 publication, Nations Not Obsesses with Crime. It uses currently available quantitative data to present an updated statistical portrait of these countries. It aims to critically evaluate the criteria that have been and should be used to designate countries as low-crime. It also investigates whether these countries have been able to maintain this status over the past three decades. Finally, it discusses the theoretical implications of this updated statistical portrait for cross-national criminology.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Erin Horan and Jennifer Owens, former students at the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, for their research assistance on this project, as well as Dr. Amy Nivette and the anonymous reviewers for comments on previous iterations of this paper. An earlier version of this project was presented at the 2010 meeting of the American Sociological Association.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky, 1571 Patterson Office Tower, Lexington, KY, 40506, Kentucky

    Janet P. Stamatel

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Correspondence to Janet P. Stamatel.

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Stamatel, J.P. Revisiting nations not obsessed with crime. Crime Law Soc Change 62, 113–129 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-014-9529-3

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