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Las Vegas, Nevada, has recently experienced a drop in crime, like much of the rest of the country. Some areas around the country attribute the drop in crime to the current state of the economy and others take credit for innovative crime-fighting initiates. But according to a recent story out of Las Vegas, the local police are crediting their drop in crime to the use of new technology, including crime mapping, and changes in their philosophy toward policing.
Has your agency thought about public-facing crime mapping? Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Not always true. (courtesy of toonpool.com)
A study published by Rasmussen Reports recently found that 80% of Americans believe that crime will increase if the economy is bad. I can certainly understand the logic; if people lose their jobs, especially those who were just barely making it anyway, they will turn to other means to secure income, even illegal means. This type of thinking also leads one to think that if someone doesn’t have the money for something they want, they are more likely to steal it. The logic even goes so far as to say that if people are unemployed, then they have more time to commit crimes, more time to take drugs, more time to get drunk, etc.
However, the statistics don’t back up this line of thinking. A recent analysis published by the New York Times found that crime is actually down significantly across the country this year compared to last year. In addition, historical data doesn’t prove that crime rises in a poor economy either. For example, during the roaring 20s, crime was up significantly, then dropped like a rock during the Great Depression.
I recently asked a number of law enforcement professionals and analysts about the link between crime and the economy, and they were generally of the mind that crime usually decreases in times of economic hardship. Chief Tom Casady, of the Lincoln, Nebraska, PD, theorized that the drop in crime during a recession can be attributed to “Less exposure and more guardianship.” He says, “Think of it like this: if I’ve cut back on dining out by 5%, shopping by 5%, and travel by 5%, that’s 5% less time that my car is sitting in a parking lot exposed to having its window busted out, and 5% reduction in the time available for someone to kick open the walk-in door to my garage while I’m away. It’s a 5% reduction in the likelihood that someone will take my leather jacket off the coat rack, and a 5% reduction in the chance that I’ll get mugged on my way back to the hotel from the restaurant.”
In addition, if people have less money, they are less likely to buy items of value. This decreases the demand for valuable items in the black market—if there is decreased demand for products, criminals are less likely to steal them with the hope of making a profit. As well, if citizens themselves have less items of value, criminals don’t have as much property to steal.
For example, if you have disposable income, you might buy a big flat-screen TV and hang it in your living room. If everyone has a lot of money, they all want to buy flat-screen TVs, so criminals will target people with flat-screen TVs for theft. This translates into an increased risk that you will be burglarized. On the other hand, if you don’t have disposable income, you won’t buy the TV and you won’t be a target. As well, if no one has the money for flat-screen TVs, criminals can’t sell them, so they are less likely to steal them in the first place.
But despite these examples and the general statistics, it is important to keep in mind that the dynamics between a recession and crime rates is not straightforward and can vary from location to location and over time. An area harder hit by a recession may react differently than an area that is only slightly affected or where it doesn’t last as long.
Christopher Bruce, President of the International Association of Crime Analysts, points out that if a recession last five years, “Joblessness creeps up another few percentage points. People have exhausted their unemployment benefits. Foreclosures leave entire streets or even neighborhoods abandoned and derelict. Gentrification of inner cities begins to reverse. Rates of alcoholism and drug abuse increase. Slums reappear in cities that seemed to have stamped them out. Income inequity starts to breed real resentment. Kids who are 10, 11, 12 [during the recession] turn 15, 16, 17 having grown up in conditions of desperate poverty. That’s when you expect an increase in crime. “
There is some evidence to suggest that domestic abuse may increase in areas of unemployment, and certain crimes may be more likely to increase in some places. However, overall, predicting crime rates solely based on the economy is difficult at best and can get convoluted, based on location, duration, and socio-economic factors. Basing our fear of rising crime solely on economic factors leads us to unneeded stress and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is not based on rational analysis and real-world proof.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
At a recent public safety forum sponsored by the National Criminal Justice Association, criminologists from around the country were predicting an increase of crime over the next year, despite statistics that show crime is significantly down in the first six months of 2009 compared to 2008.
One expert predicted that property crime will increase by 400,000 nationwide over the next year, citing a historical correlation between unemployment and property crime. However, alongside conventional wisdom that a recession creates criminals is the fact that crime was significantly up during Prohibition, but then dropped during the Great Depression.
Considering that the FBI and law enforcement agencies across the US are reporting a general drop in crime (a dramatic drop in some areas), what is the reality? And what can average citizens actually expect in the coming months?
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Over the weekend, the New York Times published an intriguing story about how the crime rate is dropping across the country, contrary to what most people thought would happen when the economy went south.
Conventional wisdom holds that when people start losing jobs or have poor job prospects, they are more likely to turn to a life of crime, thus crime will rise in a bad economy. But so far, the first half of 2009 has had a significantly lower crime rate than the same period last year. Across the country crime in the first half of 2009 is down between 7 and 22 percent from the same period in 2008.
Most analysts and scholars are at a loss for why this is the case. Obviously, in areas like Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and other big cities that have started new crime fighting initiatives in the past six months analysts can point to a reason for the falling crime rate. In other cities, where no major policy change has taken place, how can one account for a drop in crime?
What’s your opinion? In general, why has crime dropped across the country?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/weekinreview/02dewan.html?_r=1
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Police Departments, who were once thought to be immune from economic trends, have recently found themselves with a budget crunch due to the recent economic downturn. Many agencies are faced with cutting down their police force and are concerned about providing a lower level of service to their communities. As an alternative, many agencies have applied for federal grant money under the COPS programs, but with only $1 billion in funding available and more that $8 billion in requested funds, some agencies will find themselves coming up short.
Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-police-layoffs,0,630589.story
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Yesterday at the National Institute of Justice annual crime research conference, multiple police chiefs, as well as the Second Vice-President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, expressed a concern over budget cuts brought on by the recent economic slowdown. Many expressed that they have to be more efficient and will have to “do more with less.” A budget cut affects the number of officers employed by departments as well as auxiliary personnel like crime analysts and dispatchers. Some are concerned that a loss in manpower will result in a rise in crime.
Source: http://thecrimereport.org/2009/06/18/police-lament-budget-cuts-as-homicides-dui-deaths-mount/
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So, you have massive debt and you realize you’re going to have to cut back on a few expenses; what is the first option that comes to mind? Blowing up your SUV? Burying your BMW in a field? Apparently, the economy is driving some car owners to do those very things then file fraudulent insurance claims in hopes of a windfall that will dig them out of their hole (no pun intended).
Fraudulent car insurance claims are on the rise as owners try and cut their losses and cut down their debt in the face of a bad economy. Fraudulent claims have increased 11 percent from last year, and cost consumers $30 billion a year on average.
As law enforcement officers it might be worth it to keep your eyes out for suspicious car explosions or thefts, and make sure to follow up and investigate further. Not only will catching these perpetrators serve justice, but it will save the rest of us money in the form of increased insurance rates.
Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/article1009084.ece
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Although the debate over increased or decreased crime during hard economic times is far from settled, that doesn’t keep people and companies from jumping into the fray. A post at the A.E. Feldman blog argues that white-collar crime consistently increases during times of economic recession.
Blake Coppotelli, Senior Managing Director in a Business Intelligence and Investigation firm is quoted as saying: “In difficult economic conditions, businesses are struggling to compete for fewer business opportunities. This creates more incentives to deviate from proper business practices and engage in fraudulent activities to protect and maintain revenue . . . . We saw a marked increase in the number of corporate fraud cases during the market downturns of 1987, 1991 and 2001.”
On the other hand, one might wonder if more white-collar criminals are caught during times of economic downturn simply because companies are more vigilant during those times and more concerned about losing their assets?
What do you think? Leave a comment.
Source: http://blog.aefeldman.com/2009/06/09/companies-brace-for-onslaught-of-white-collar-crime/
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Over the past few days, a number of articles have been published dealing with citizens’ perception of crime versus the actual crime data coming out of police departments. Overall, it seems that most people feel that crime is on the rise, even though most areas of the country are actually experiencing a drop in crime.
New York, LA, New Jersey, San Francisco, and other large populations centers are all experiencing a recent drop in crime that has largely gone unpublished in the media. In addition, there is a common-sense line of thinking that states that when the economy goes bad, crime goes up. However logical this may seem, there is actually no proven correlation between a bad economy and high crime rates. In fact, proving such a correlation is almost impossible because of the sheer amount of variables involved. But these factors go into the formation of public opinion that crime is on the rise, when the numbers actually contradict that assumption.
The Item published an interesting article recently about the fine line of reporting crime, basically asking the question: how do you balance giving the public the information they need without overplaying the amount of crime committed? Perhaps the solution lies in getting more information out to the public through tools like CrimeReports.com, Twitter, Facebook, and other internet and print-based media.
Is the perception of crime higher than the reality in your area? What can we do to change it? Leave a comment.
Sources:
Hudson Reporter
LA Times
Contra Costa Times
New York Daily News
The Item
Related Post: Bad Economy=More Crime?
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USA Today recently published a story that many law enforcement agencies are already aware of: the economy is forcing local law enforcement to cut officers and services. As the economy worsens, there is not as much tax revenue and as a result police budgets have been slashed all over the US. In some cases, as the USA Today story points out, entire police departments have been eliminated, forcing county sheriffs and police to stretch their resources to serve larger areas of citizens.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-17-police-closure_N.htm
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