Industrial urbanization structurally compelled heavy investment in violent-crime control

Evidence

Violent crime, particularly in the cities, is intolerable in an interdependent, industrial society, at least above a certain minimum. The city is the heart of modern society; society is governed from the city; the economy depends on city life. The city is the place where people confront strangers most continuously, where their lives, property, and health are most at hazard. A society that is heavily urban and industrial, with extreme division of labor, must invest in controlling violent crime. Crime is bad for business, and bad for the social order. The city civilizes and tames, to a certain extent; for this reason violence apparently diminished in the course of the nineteenth century. The social investment in crime-​fighting also increased—​investment in police and detective forces. The public demand for law and order, however, did not perhaps keep pace with supply; crime was perceived, as it still is, as a serious problem. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3373

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why modern police forces arose — ties to ch8 and ch11 in this book and to the polyad’s institutional-history thread. — connects to: Urban spatial reordering co-occurred within industrialization’s broad convulsive changes; Urbanization converted guns from food tools into crime and fear drivers — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1013; Industrial wealth’s physical form drove demands for stricter theft laws — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 142

Broader Connections

• Urban spatial reordering co-occurred within industrialization’s broad convulsive changes #expands (0.82)
• Urbanization converted guns from food tools into crime and fear drivers #expands (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1013
• Industrial wealth’s physical form drove demands for stricter theft laws #corroborates (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 142