Social class and crime relationship was one of the controversial issues in criminology. Many of criminological theories argue that crime and delinquency would be inversely related to class position. However, a number of findings from empirical research do not support such theoretical expectation. In spite of the importance of social class-crime relationship, there have been only a few systematic empirical studies on this relationship in Korea. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social class through mediating factors on law offenses in Korean society.
The data used in this study was drawn from a self-reported survey by KIC(Korean Institution of Criminology). The sample consist of a total of 1,118 adult males aged between 20 and 59 living in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Inchen, Kwangju, Daejon, and Ulsan were interviewed. We utilized the following statistical methods to analyze these data: Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis, Structural Equation Model(LISREL). The class of respondents was measured with a scales of six items: respondent's educational attainment, household's occupational status, family income, possession in the home, family economical level, subjective class. Crime was measured with order offence, violent crime, and property crime. And we used 2 mediating variables to link social class to crime; such as strain and deterrence.
In this study, we found that low class promoted class by increasing individual's strain, whereas high class promoted crime by increasing individual's deterrence. We concluded that social class has both a negative and a positive indirect effect upon crime through social psychological mediators. From our study, it is implied that future research should attempt to develop a more refined model on the relationship between class and crime.