Challenging the Crime Drop: Crime Rise and Institutional Imbalance in Turkey

• In Event: Global Patterns and Shifting Institutions: Comparative Justice and Crime Trends

Abstract

Crime statistics in Western countries have largely indicated a steady decline in various types of crime since the mid-1980s. However, in stark contrast to this global trend, Turkey has experienced a persistent surge in crime rates. Despite the limitations of official criminal justice statistics, the numbers reveal a dramatic escalation. Contrary to the Western crime drop thesis, acquisitive-instrumental crimes in Turkey have skyrocketed over the past three decades. Drawing on Institutional-Anomie Theory, this paper argues that the rise in crime is driven by an institutional imbalance between the economy, shaped by the market system, and other regulatory societal institutions such as the polity, family, and education. This imbalance was created by the forced integration of Turkey into global open-market capitalism through the coup and junta regime in the 1980s and was later reinforced by pro-Islamist but also pro-market political power. Supporting the premises of Global Anomie Theory while also emphasizing culturally specific articulations, the paper suggests that a unique fusion of neoliberal market-oriented policies with Islamic–conservative social engineering in politics, family, and education has paved the way for institutional imbalance. Furthermore, neoliberal market-oriented economic policies and increasing authoritarianism have exacerbated poverty, deprivation, and social inequality. Acquisitive–instrumental crimes emerge as a means to alleviate poverty, deprivation, and marginalization, ultimately serving as a survival strategy for the most precarious and marginalized sections of the urban poor.

Author

• Boran Ali Mercan, Ankara University