An Empirical Analysis Of The Crime In The Process Of Urbanization

The history of urban development around the world has proved that global countries will fall into a "vicious circle"-- urbanization is accompaniedby crimeincreases--in different degrees when urbanization is taking place within the countries,and China is no exception. Professor Stiglitz, the Nobel Economics Prize laureate and World Bankformer chief economist, believes that the urbanization in China ranks the first among the three major challenges faced by itin the 21 st century. In 2011 the urbanization rate in China’s mainland topped 50 percent, and according to statistics China has become an “urbanized” country. This also indicates that China’s urbanizationdevelops into a critical period stressing quality and speed. In the report of the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC), Premier Li Keqiang clearly claims that urbanization is a major strategyof development among others in the modernization process. The Third Plenary of the 18 th CPC Central Committee puts forward a series of measures to advance urbanization. However, urbanization in the Western history covers about 160 years in that it transmits and spreads gradually; while the urbanization in China appearing since its reform and opening up only costs 30 years, so it is inevitable that China needs to “beardiachronic contradictions in a synchronic period”.Especially, we have to face more and more serious crime problems which happen along with the growing scale of urbanization.This thesis concerns about the rising crime phenomenon in China’s urbanization process. It first defines the connotation and extensional meaning of“urbanization”and “criminal” and gives some knowledge of the associated criminological theories. Then based on them, it systematically analyzes the crime trends since 1983 and the main features of the six categories of major crimes against people’s personal rights and property rights under the urbanization environment. Then it focuses on the new crime trends and the changes of the crime subjects’ characteristics inthe urbanization context. It also conducts an objective test on the relationship between crime and the degree of urbanization, the economic development and the demographic factors. Specifically, this paper is divided into three parts including six chapters :The first chapter mainly defines the basic concepts of "urbanization" and "criminal" in this paper, and briefly introduces the criminological theorieson which the research bases. First, rural urbanization and urbanization are homogeneous only different in size not in essence. Urbanizationoriginates in the Industrial Revolution, for the rapid economic development is its driving force. And the urbanization inevitably leads to large-scale migration. Theoretically,the degree of urbanization depends on the industrialization level, and the combination of urbanization and industrialization forms modern constitution. China’s urbanization has gone from "strict control of large cities, rational development of small cities" to "proper control of big cities, vigorous development of small towns", then to “harmonious development of cities and towns”, and finally to “simultaneous development of industrialization, urbanization,information technology, and agricultural modernization”. Second, given that the concept of “crime” is different in different fields,the paper studies the crime in the field of traditional criminal law, and gives more attention to the current characteristics and change trends of the traditional criminal crimes against people’s personal rights and property rights in the process of urbanization.Meanwhile, it also analyzes and discusses the food crime and environmental crime which have attracted widespread attention in recent yearsand are closely related to the daily life of ordinary citizens, as well as new types of natural crime occurring in the previousamendmentsto the criminal law.Chapters 2-3 together constitute the second part.Based on the China Statistical Yearbook data, national crime data from 1983 to 2012 andsuspects data in Chongqing from 2000 to 2013,this part systematically analyzes the crime trends in our history, and the changes and features of the main crime typesand of the specialsubjects of crime under the urbanization environment, in order to directly present the changing trends of main crimes and the current characteristics of crime under the urbanization background, and the corresponding criminal legislation.The second chapter sees the overall changing trends of the crime rate in the process of urbanization since 1983 from historical perspective. With the development of urbanization, the total number of crime is on the rise on the whole, but the trend is not regular. The double national "strict crackdowns" on crime have a profound influence whilesuch "strict crackdowns" are directly related to urbanization. And the data show that the "strict crackdown" fails to reduce crime rate but only cause more crimes.Based on the second chapter,the third chapter gives a systematic analysisof the six categories of major crimes against citizens’ personal rights and property rights, and at the same time an evaluation and interpretation of other typical crimes emerging with urbanization since 1997 when the new criminal law was issued. As urbanization develops and cities become more orderly, intentional homicide and rape crime have decreased substantially, butintentional injury cases have increased due to the growing possibilities of conflict resulting from the large-scale centralization of population. Owing to economic development,crimes against property have increased-- theft, as the most common type, has a substantial increase.The popularity of the network reduces the cost and difficulty of fraud, so such crimes rise obviously.Whereas robbery falls instead rises thanks to the precautionary measures such as video surveillance despite of the rising opportunity. In addition, in the context of urbanization, such crimes against environment and food safety have gradually attracted more attention.Because urbanization“bearsdiachronic contradictions in a synchronic period”, the general public and criminal law field feel widespread anxiety towards the society. According to the previous several amendments to the criminal law, the circle of crime expands-- with the involvement of dangerous driving as its representative.The third part includes Chapter 4, Chapter 5and Chapter6. In this part, taking Chongqing as an exampleand based on the Chongqing Statistical Yearbook data, investigates the relationship between crime and urbanization from the three perspectives of urbanization rate, economic development and demographic factors. China’s urbanization rate is judged from the household type which is subject to our country’s strict control, so it is only an important indicator of the current urbanization level.At the same time, economic development and demographic factors are closely associated with urbanization, so it is appropriate to analyze and studythe relationship between urbanization and crime from these three dimensions.Chapter 4, taking Chongqing as an example,analyzes the relationship between crime and urbanization from such indicators as the rate of urbanization, urban infrastructure level and urban carrying capacity. The study found that the rate of urbanization was in a strongly negative correlation with the incidence of homicide but in a strongly positive correlation with the incidence of theft and fraud; urban infrastructure level was negatively correlated with homicide but positively correlated with theft and fraud; and town carrying capacity was in a negative correlation with the incidence of homicide and robbery but kept a strongly positive correlation with theft and fraud. The crime of rape was not significantly correlated with the three indicators.Chapter 5 still takes Chongqing as an example sample to study the correlation between crime and economic factors in urbanization. The study found that the economic gap between the various functional areas of Chongqing was not associated with crime, but microscopically the income gap between urban and rural areas of Chongqing were in a strongly negative correlation with homicidecrimerate but in a strongly positive correlation with the incidence of theft and fraud. The differencesof Engel coefficient between Chongqing rural and urban areas was in a moderately negative correlation with the incidence of theft,and in a strongly negative correlation with the incidence of fraud. The study found that poverty was closely related to crime in Chongqing.Except rape, the other five types of crime were correlated with the incidence of poverty. However, in terms of unemployment, except robbery, the other four categories of crime were in no significant relationship with the changes inunemployment.Chapter 6 also takes Chongqing as an example to study the relationship between crime and demographic factors in the process of urbanization. The study found that in the process of urbanization, changes in population distribution were significantly correlated to homicide, theft and fraud. Dynamically, except rape, either the inflow or outflow of population was positively related to the crime rate per ten thousand of the other four types of crime; statically,the population density was significantly correlated to homicide crime rate and the incidence of theft and fraud per ten thousand.