Western industrial nations, this innovative book develops a new sociology of crime and disrepute that focuses on the criminal costs of social inequality to account for the experience of the United States. Hagan connects the diversion of funding away from distressed communities in the USA to increased violence and lack of social mobility for disadvantaged groups which in turn result in the development of "deviance service centers" and "ethnic vice industries". Another criminal cost to the growing disparity between rich and poor takes place at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, in the way white-collar crime, "crime in the suites", is permitted to flourish in the new global economy. The important theoretical link between these very different kinds of crime is further demonstration of why a comparative and historical perspective can form the basis for a better understanding of crime and disrepute.

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