Comparative Criminology and Developing Countries

Abstract

A truly comparative criminology must approach existing data and conduct new research by using theoretical frameworks, propositions, or models that can be tested across various societies. For an adequate comparative criminology it is essential to ascertain whether similar social processes account for crime in technologically developed and less developed societies. For developed societies, such as the United States and the countries of Europe, the most important causal factors have been shown, generally, to be increasing urbanization and the persistence of slum areas. A universal process that crosses cultural lines is the migration of large numbers of rural people into the cities, where the subsequent process of urbanization modifies their behavior. The probabilities are high that many of these migrants and, if they are married, their children, who, if they had remained in their own rural homes, would most likely not have engaged in crime, will become involved in some sort of criminal activities in an urban context. If certain uniform social processes, such as urbanization, contribute to criminal behavior, existing variations can be assumed, conversely, to be related to variations in these processes, including urbanization.