Crime Control Measures, Individual Liberties, and Crime Rates

• DOI: 10.1177/1057567716680401
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Jay Albanese
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Crime Control Measures,

Individual Liberties, and

Crime Rates: An Assessment

of 40 Countries

Jay Albanese

1

Abstract

The balance between crime control methods and individual liberties is always problematic,

creating tension, because in order to investigate crime, and adjudicate and punish offenders, it

is necessary to make reasonable intrusions into the liberty of citizens. This study uses data from

40 countries to examine the crime control measures (police per capita and conviction rates)

that reflect government investments in criminal justice apparatus to control crime and crim-

inals, as well as the use of these crime control measures through government intervention in

the lives of its citizens (formal citizen contacts with police, prosecution rate, and detention

rate), to examine their impact on crime victimization rates (homicide rates and crimes included

in the international crime victim survey). The purpose is to examine whether these government

interventions have any impact on crime rates across countries, controlling other independent

variables that might help to explain any observed relationships among these variables (such as

measures of civil liberties, democracy, human development, available information and com-

munications technologies, political rights, corruption perceptions, education, economic free-

dom, freedom of the press, and prosperity).

Keywords

comparative criminal justice, crime control, social and political factors, crime rates, homicide rates

The balance between crime co ntrol methods and individua l liberties is always problem atic,

creating tension, because in order to investigate crime, and adjudicate and punish offenders, it is

necessary to make reasonable intrusions into the liberty of citizens. These intrusions include formal

police contacts with citizens, prosecution, conviction, and detention.

Besides individual liberty interests, another constraint on these criminal justice interventions into

the lives of citizens is the resources available. That is, a country’s financial capacity to fund police,

courts, and corrections impacts its ability for effective crime control and its impacts on individual

1

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jay Albanese, Virginia Commonwealth University, 923 West Franklin St, Richmond, VA 23284, USA.

Email: jsalbane@vcu.edu

International CriminalJustice Review

2017, Vol. 27(1) 5-18

ª2016 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567716680401

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