Crime and Economic recession

Introduction

Many people believe that the nation's crime rate is correlated with the state of the economy — that is, as the economy dwindles, the rate of crime increases. It's not an invalid fear: when people lose their jobs and become desperate to make ends meet, they sometimes turn to petty crime to help alleviate their economic problems.

Discussion

When people have nothing to lose, they're more likely to commit crimes — it hasn't been proved to be true historically. This can be explained by a number of different factors: for one, the people that are most likely to commit crimes during bad economic times are generally just as likely to commit them in good economic times. This tendency essentially means that crime is not affected by this group; their propensity to commit crime is not changed by the condition of the economy.

A second factor that affects the crime rate during recessions is the fact that people move in with their families when the economy is unstable. This phenomenon actually has a stabilizing effect on the crime rate; instead of being pressed for money to pay rent, younger people — the most prone to resorting to crime out of desperation — rely on their parents or grandparents for support and thus are less likely to commit crimes they might otherwise feel pressured to commit.

The difference is not that their families offer more support in tough times, but that they feel less shame for accepting it. There is less of a negative stigma attached to relying on one's family for support in a downturn, and this acceptance makes it easier for young people to avoid crimes that they would otherwise have to commit in order to survive.

The severe economic recession has brought about the possibility of a crime wave occuring in the future. The soaring unemployment rate may mean that more desparate people will resort to crime to obtain money. At the time of this writing, the official U.S unemployment rate has jumped to about 8.1% (this is the U-3 unemployment rate which does not include the underemployed or those who have stopped looking for work). In California, the unemployment rate is 10.1%(UNODC 14). According to some sources(UNIAP SIREN 6), there is typically a 'lag-time' of about a year between a significant economic event (e.g. massive bank failures, stock market crash etc.) and an increase in crime. If this theory holds true, then the U.S. might see a crime spike somewhere around Sept. 2009 as the effects of the 2008 crash begin to manifest themselves fully(US Department of State 43). As usual, there are conflicting studies on this topic, as some studies indicate that a crime increase does not necessarily occur when the economy deteriorates. Criminologists say that such incidents are the result of an increasing number of Americans feel desperate pressure from job losses and other economic hardship. Of course, such connections tend to be difficult to prove.The robberies were a fitting end to a terrible year. On the ...