This study is the last one among the three-year researches designed to diagnose and extrapolate the trends of social changes and to address these variances to criminal justice policies. The researches have discussed one key issue associated with major social changes each year. Precedent studies have researched Population Ageing and Changes in Criminal Policies and Spread of Multi-culturalism and Changes in Criminal Policies. And this study, Economic Polarization and Changes in Criminal Policies, is intended to analyze crime phenomena brought about by economic polarization(income inequality) and to prepare the remodelling of criminal justice policies in a preemptive way.
Korean Society today has encountered structurally intensified economic polarization and swelling income inequality, which give rise to abnormally high youth unemployment, dwindled middle class, increasing elderly poverty, and declined upward mobility. Indeed, according to Statistics Korea’s 2016 income distribution index released in May, the Gini coefficient, the income quintile multiplier, and the relative poverty rate are deteriorating, which indicates that income distribution has worsened. The costs of economic polarization and income inequality to the society, somewhat considered as pathologies, have been reminded and empirically researched by many researchers including eminent scholars such as Stiglitz, Piketty, and Wilkinson. Korea also has experienced a surge in the crime rate during the period of the IMF financial crisis and 2008 global financial crisis that society become acutely unequal. Hence, it is a crucial matter of concern to establishing an appropriate policy implication in order to prevent the increase of crime rates caused by current economic polarization.
Therefore, this study tries to investigate in depth the pattern of crime caused by economic polarization(income inequality) and to set up with policies to effectively deal with, in order to make society safer and to allow people to live in peace without fear of crime.
To achieve the objectives of the study, this study is organized to be inclusive of the following contents. First, we review the concept of the economic polarization, factors that cause and intensify the economic polarization, current situation and trends of economic polarization in Korea. And we review literatures regarding the impact of economic polarization to property and violent crimes, imprisonment, and other societal issues. Second, we analyze indicators of economic polarization, or income inequality by utilizing statistics from Korean Statistical Information Service. Also, we utilize Analytical Report on Crime, an official statistics published by Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and figure out yearly crime trends. Third, we estimate how economic polarization(income inequality) influences crime rate by using crime data of 229 municipalities and income level measurement from 230,000 samples nationwide by Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Fourth, we conduct and analyze a survey to compare the awareness and opinions between residents living in high and low economic polarization areas. Fifth, we conduct both advisory and in-depth interviews with criminologists and criminal justice practitioners to elaborate a more systematic and specialized policy implication to cope with the economic polarization. Finally, we look into the United States, Canada, and Europe in regards to the relationship between economic polarization (income inequality) and crime rate, and the criminal policies they implemented.

The relationship between economic inequality and criminal occurrence

Korea

This study analyzed the relationship between economic inequality and criminal occurrence. In particular, we used crime and income data of 229 cities, counties and districts instead of 16 cities and provinces, and selected seven crimes based on different occurring mechanism and background of these crimes. Specifically, index crimes were analyzed such as murder, robbery, sexual offences, arson, theft, and assaults in addition to intellectual crime which is the least violent type of crime. The independent variables were used the Gini coefficient which used to be used most extensively in existing research. In addition, we utilized income quintile multiplier and ER polarization index for differentiations of existing studies. To consider characteristics of crime data, negative binomial regression were conducted and fixed effect model were also applied for accuracy of estimating causal effects.
The analysis results showed that the higher Gini coefficient, the higher probability of crime occurrence of theft, robbery and assaults. Also, income quintile multiplier and ER polarization index are related to robbery. There is a significant indication that the relevance between income inequality and violent crime from abroad has been found to be the same in Korea's criminal justice system, and that deepening income inequality has not contributed to a weak level of deviant behavior, but increases the likelihood of a strong degree of violent behavior. In the end, the possibility of economic inequality could increase the likelihood of crime occurrence in society, which raised the need for the government and society to narrow wealth gaps. However, in addition to the basic limitations of the crime data, some control parameters of 16 cities and provinces were used instead of 229 cities, counties and districts and it’s not sufficient to prevent reverse causal relations between the police and crimes. These limitations should be compensated in the future.

Canadian & U.S.

The investigation of Canadian and U.S. status reveals that both countries have shown steady increases of income polarization since 1960s. The analyses of causalities between income inequality and crime rate present that regional distribution of violent crimes is significantly influenced by the level of income inequalities. This finding is relevant to the theoretical approaches which posits the positive effect of income inequalities on the increase of criminality level in societies and consistent with findings from previous empirical studies. Therefore, this study concludes that income inequalities significantly increases the level of criminality and boosts crime rates.
For the purpose of proposing effective crime prevention policies for the Korean criminal justice system, this study focuses on the change of crime trends in Canada and U.S. during the middle of 1990s. While the level of income inequalities in both countries have consistently increased during 1990s and later, the crime rates started to decrease in 1990s. After reviewing the crime prevention policies in Canada and U.S., the current study finds that both countries have shared common crime prevention approaches and applied quite similar crime prevention policies when crime trends showed the downturn changes. The current study summarizes these common approaches into three core aspects.
First, based on political and social concerns on crime elevations, both countries enacted a legislation or criminal justice policy holding similar standing to a legislation. These legislations have allocated new budgets to criminal justice systems in both countries.
Second, to effectively accomplish these legislations and expend the given budgets efficiently, both countries established professional crime prevention institutions and applied the findings from empirical studies to crime prevention operations. In U.S., the Office of Community Oriented Policing Service was founded in 1994, and the National Crime Prevention Centre was initiated in Canada. These institutions have proposed diverse crime prevention policies which are tailored for specific crimes based on the findings from empirical studies.
Lastly, both countries have provided incentives to criminal justice agencies/officials in order to make them positively involved in the applications of new crime prevention policies and approaches. In sum, this study concludes that Canada and U.S. have successfully prevented crimes through these new crime prevention approaches and changed the crime trends in spite of steady increase of income inequalities.

European countries

Analyzing recent official data in 36 European countries, the current report investigated the relationships among income inequality, crime rate, homicide rate, suicide rate, and incarceration rate. Unlike in the meta-analysis results, this analysis revealed the strong positive associations of income inequality measures with homicide rate and incarceration rate. With the data of seven countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland, and Spain) which are classified as countries similar to South Korea in terms of income inequality patterns, however, the further analysis showed the different picture: Income inequality was positively related with crime rate, but it was negatively related with homicide rate and suicide rate.
Overall, although the previous research findings on the associations between income inequality and different types of crimes across different European countries remain inclusive, literature has consistently showed that the impacts of income inequality on crime in European countries are weak relative to ones in other countries. Scholars suggest that a possible explanation for this pattern might be due to the advanced welfare and social security systems in Europe, in which it is impossible that a substantial part of the population would drop below the minimum income levels. The results of research in Europe highlight a need for close integration between social, economic and crime policies to prevent the negative influences of income inequality on crime and other social issues. Extensive social service policies and welfare systems often function as effective crime prevention strategy in Europe. But, the question concerning the benefit receivers - if these systems should assign benefit to everyone, or if more attention of the policies and systems should be focused on under-class community remains unanswered.

Survey on the Perception of Economic Bipolarization and Future Direction of Criminal Policy

This study introduces a survey on the general public to identify whether the level of income inequality establishes a discrepancy in perception regarding economic bipolarization, trust, and crime. A total 2,040 people are interviewed, sampled from 6 districts with high income inequality index and low income inequality index respectively. And the measurement categories consist of the recognition of economic polarization and inequality, trust in government, perception of residential neighborhood (physical and social disorder), social capital, and perception of crime and criminal justice. The results show significant differences between the group of residents in high income inequality and low income inequality in most of the topics.
There is a disparity regarding the perception to current economic bipolarization between the two groups. Residents in more unequal income distributions are more conscious of the bipolar economy than the others. And the group of people tend to expect somewhat pessimistic prospects of the prent asymmetric distribution.
People's expectations differ by group regarding the relationship between the economic bipolarization and crime. Among respondents living in a high income inequality, Regarding the expectation of the first type of crime that is likely to occur as economic bipolarization intensifies, 20.8% of the respondents living in a high income inequality respond fraud and embezzlement, 14.6% respond violence and injuries, and 12.8% respond murder. On the other hands, among the group of respondents in low income inequality areas, 19.3% respond violence and injuries, 16.2% respond robbery, and 13.6% respond murder to be the most likely to increase as a result of economic bipolarization.
The groups present different viewpoints on various social inequalities. First, it is found that the residents with high income inequality consider our society as more unequal. In particular, unequal income level and employment opportunities are relatively more recognized than other types of social inequalities. On the contrary, people from more equal neighborhoods tend to consider income differentials as necessary in order to provide motivations to work diligently. And economic polarization is just a result of a competition on equal or fair conditions.
Second, people in unequal regions are inclined to be more negative about distributive justice, equal opportunity, and wealth and poverty inheritance of the society. Interestingly, both groups have a unanimous viewpoint of pessimism as to the opportunity to upward mobility that it become worse in the future.
Perception of trust in government is divided according to the groups. Residents with high income inequality express relatively lower levels of trust in governmental agencies as well as the society as a whole. And they are less likely to perceive that criminaj justice system(police investigations, prosecution investigations, court judgment, and the activities of criminal justice agencies) is impartially executed.
Perception toward the regional community are overall discordant by the level of inequality. First, the respondents recognize physical and social disorder of their residents in a different manner by the level of inequality. Those in unequal localities are likely to regard their neighborhoods as disordered than the others. But, overall, respondents, regardless of groups, show somewhat positive perception of the region. Second, either the respondent is living in equal or unequal region is not significant in the relationship with neighbors. But more proportions of the respondents living in high inequality respond positive to ‘if a child in the neighbourhood is harassed, you will help him/her’ and ‘If crime has occurred, you will call to the police’. Third, residents with low income inequality tend to be more positive in all measures of perception to the police at the precinct than those with high income inequality, such as police patrol activities, expectation to arrest a crime. Finally, residents in more equal area feel more distant to immigrants, north Korean refugees, ex-convicts, and multicultural families. And people’s social distress is shown to be greater in the order of ex-convicts, mentally-ills, and homosexuals if they move to the respondents’ neighborhoods.
Level of aggression is shown to be varied by the level of income inequality. People in high income inequality are measured more aggression than those in low income inequality. Perceptions of economic circumstances are differ by the group as well. People in high income inequality are more pessimistic about the economic situation in the future. And they are less satisfied with the economic situation in Korea. Also, they tend to think that they are having a worse economic situation is than others in either within the neighborhood and other neighborhoods. Furthermore, they surmise that the overall economic situation of their neighborhood is worse than that of other neighborhoods.
Compared to the residents living in low income inequality, more proportion of people in high inequality is likely to consider that people from Middle and lower class in this society are having more disadvantages, experiencing more unfairness and relative deprivation. These negative responses outreach 50%, except the question that people from middle and lower class are experiencing more unfairness─which records slightly less than 50%.
Regarding the topic of crime and criminal policies, first, general fear of crime does not differ according to income inequality. And among specific types of crime, respondents with high income inequality are more afraid of theft, fraud, and burglary. And no significant difference is shown in other types of crime. Besides, they are inclined to uate less about whether crime prevention and its policies are well-introduced to the public. Second, in every type of crime measured in the survey, respondents of high inequality are more likely to envision that economic polarization influences to the increase of crime in the future. In particular, the proportion of respondents is elevated who foresee an escalation of occurrence in random street assaults targeting women, the elderly, children, and the weak.
Third, inhabitants living in unequal areas have experienced more property crimes (burglary, pickpockets/snatchers/stowaways, motorcycle/bicycle theft, money or valuables extortion) those in relatively equal income distribution. But motorcycle/bicycle theft does not show a significant difference after controlling income.
Fourth, among the crime prevention and deterrence policies, residents in high income inequality demand strict punishment for criminals (88.3%), followed by police patrols (85.6%), criminal treatment and correction (83.8%), and expanding the applicable crimes of Real-time location-tracking (82.9%). In contrast, publics in low income inequality want strict punishment for criminals (83.6%), followed by police patrols (78.0%), expanding the applicable crimes of Real-time location-tracking (77.3%), and criminal treatment and correction (76.8%).
Inhabitants with high income inequality express more responses to every type of preventive activities on the matter of importance. Finally, residents of low income inequality areas tend to believe that social safety nets─social security for protecting lower class, policies for unemployment, and financial institutions and policies for reducing household debt─are functioning better.

In-depth interviews with criminologists and criminal justice practitioners

Through the interviews with criminologists and practitioners in the field of criminal justice, it is shown that economic polarization (or inequality) is an important and urgent issue in the future of Korea. Although the level of statistical inequality index is not quite high, (it seems counterintuitive,) the ratio of middle class dwindles and the economic gap between rich and poor has widened steadily. Many criminologists concern that relative deprivation and conflict factors might cause hate crimes, which is the prominent characteristic in expected trend. Indeed, fraud and embezzlement, intimidation, defamation and Insult drastically increased recently.
In terms of fairness in criminal justice process, they consent to being discrimination against socio-economically weak class, and propose to improve the state-appointed attorney system for minimal protection mechanism for them. In penalties, despite of the principle of the same punishment, it need to set the guideline for consideration of complex purposes.
Scholars and practitioners of criminal justice suggest that the treatment in the reentry process of prisoners should be consisted with the social justice. Also, in the skeptical view about the process, they point out the limitation of the treatment programs, job training programs, and employment assistant programs devoid from reality.
Furthermore, according to them, government should make up for the social safety net and take initiating role in prevention of crime for the disadvantaged. Especially, the advanced information-technology including big data would provide more precise information about crime occurrence, thus it helps reducing fear of crime. The last point is that our society need to be more tolerant for differences, considering the potential possibility of conflicts in race, culture, generations would lead to crimes.

Policy Implications

1. Comprehensive considerations on the society, economy, and criminal justice policy: In order to minimize the impact of economic bipolarization on crime, holistic considerations on society as a whole, economy, and criminal justice policies is necessary. For example, social welfare system, education system, and healthcare system may either directly or indirectly reduce crime rate.
2. Establishing strategies for vulnerable areas for crime: While experiencing the economic bipolarization, Korean society has recently experienced a division of residents according to the class. This may concentrate lower classes in specific regions and get involved in a crime scene. Hence, policies are needed to protect those who are vulnerable to each type of crime.
One aspect we should consider is that the benefit from social welfare system should not only be targeted to the lower class, but extend to all classes in that it can cultivate general trust of the society. This will result in an effective crime prevention.
3. Implementing nation-based crime prevention policies and effective operations of Institutions for crime prevention: The impact of economic bipolarization to the crime can only be sufficiently controlled by the state level approaches, and both the U.S. and Canada cases show that they are potentially able to reduce crime rate even in the period of deepening of economic polarization.
4. Setting criminal policies based on regional characteristics: The study shows that there are regional characteristics have major roles in crime occurrence.
Hence these characteristics should be considered to establish criminal policies in order to be effective in scaling down the crimes. In addition, regional-based police policies should be highlighted. They can enable the police authorities to be attached to local communities and can decentralize the power in that local polices have more authorities to cope with their regional-specific crimes.
5. Achieving fair criminal justice: People in the society feel frustrated and unfair if they cannot achieve success by their efforts. It is important to institutionalize fair distribution of opportunities that upward mobility is open, people who experienced failure can recover. Criminal justice policies should also consider achieving resonating with these aspects of fair society.
6. Inequality and correctional policies: Recent researches show that incarceration tends to enhance class stratification of the society. In an unequal society, people who have experienced imprisonment have limited opportunities to work and live with. Also, parents’ incarceration can have a strong negative impact on their children in education. Correctional policies must be restructured by offsetting these negative aspects.
7. Institutionalizing the authorization for accessing the data: Contemporary society strongly requires evidence-based policy establishment. And it can only be achieved when ample quality researches are undertaken, data access is allowed needless to say. However, in Korea, there are many restrictions to access the data, even to the national policy research centers, that it is hugely limiting the utilizing of academic resources. And these types of data have been open to the public from some decades before in the U.S. and European countries. Thus, it is vital to open public data or, at least, grant authorization to the national policy research centers to access the data in a legally binding way to let the researches taken to predict well and establish refined policies.