Introduction

This chapter begins by tracing the construction of the discursive thread that has established a now widely accepted claim that significant connections exist between non-participation and unemployment, between unemployment and crime, and so between non-participation and crime. Of the three prominent discourses that have dominated discussion of non-participation since the 1980s, the social exclusion discourse has been by far the most explicit in identifying these connections. As Chapter Two noted, from the beginning of the use of the concept, New Labour identified a clustered link with crime (Social Exclusion Unit, 2004). Youth Matters (Department for Education and Skills, 2005) reasserted the connection, and its influence grew, including on the basis of research derived from longitudinal studies identified in Chapter Two.

This chapter examines the empirical connections between non-participation and crime identified in a range of studies, particularly in relation to unemployment among young people. These connections are important insofar as they provide powerful legitimacy for claims that the link between non-participation and crime is causal; and insofar as they have constituted a leading element of policy discourses since the rise of New Labour. Through an exploration of policy documents, official statistics and the ‘Risk Factor Prevention Paradigm’, Section 1 traces the construction of the unemployment‒crime link, through major influential research studies and policy discourses. Section 2 examines the contributions of research to interpreting the claimed connections between them. Section 3 reviews the influence of welfare provision on the unemployment‒crime relationship and considers in depth a number of studies that attempt to isolate causal factors that shape it.