To Get Rich is Glorious: Rising Expectations, Declining Control, and Escalating Crime in Contemporary China

Abstract

After the Communist revolution, China had a relatively low crime rate. However, since the economic reform of the late 1970s, the crime rate has increased considerably. Why has crime increased when most people are doing better economically and have access to many more opportunities to improve their lives? Part of the reason may be found in the strong official emphasis on the radical new goal of making money, along with the unequal distribution and inadequate legal regulation of the means to economic success. Another factor is the loosening of formal and informal controls as a result of the changes in social structure that accompany economic reform. Control theory, developed to explain crime inWestern societies, is applied in new ways in this article to fit the unique control structures that existed in prereform China.