Crime & Poverty
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Do overall economic conditions affect crime?
– Study times of economic depression
– Look at crime over time, during periods of prosperity and
downturns
Does unemployment affect crime?
Does economic inequality affect crime?
– Compare crime rates in wealthy and poor areas
– Is inequality more important than income? Are poor areas
that exist in or near wealthy areas particularly affected?
Doesn’t address individual characteristics
Early studies
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1800’s France - Guerry
– Wealthiest regions more property crime, less violent crime
 Opportunities – more stuff to steal
– Lack of education not related to crime
 More education, more violence
1800’s France - Quetelet
– Men more likely to commit crime
 Especially poor, unemployed, undereducated
– Opportunities important
 Poor areas had less crime
 Crime more likely to happen in better off areas, by poor and
unemployed
– Inequality within richer areas might breed resentment
 Crime consequence of moral character; virtues break down if poor
Crime and overall economic conditions
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More crime during economic slumps
– Pratt and Lowenkamp: During 1976 - 1994, homicides were
negatively associated with economic activity
Contraindications
– Great Depression (1928-1940) – Henry and Short
 General crime rate does not seem to increase
 Crimes of violence declined
– Cho - 1970 - Percentage of people below poverty level in 49
largest cities not associated with seven FBI index crimes
– During the 1960’s, as the economy expanded, crime and
delinquency increased
– During the 1990’s, as the economy expanded, crime and
delinquency decreased
Crime and poverty
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Strong association between poverty and crime
– Ehrlich - 1940, 50, 60 - association between property crime and
poor households
– 1974 - Loftin and Hill - index of structural poverty
 Infant mortality, education, income, single parent families
 Strongly correlated with State homicide rates
– 1990 - Lee - concentration of poverty is important
– Stretsky et al - More concentrated the poverty, the higher the
robbery and homicide rate
Unemployment and delinquency
Hypothesis: Unemployment  poverty  crime
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Adult unemployment effect on delinquency
– Glaser and Rice: adult unemployment reduces delinquency, maybe
because parents are home
– Weatherburn and Lind: delinquency high when adult unemployment
high
Youth unemployment effect on delinquency
– Several studies report strong positive correlation between
delinquency and youth unemployment
– Ihlanfeldt -- More than 20 percent of difference in property crime
between black and white neighborhoods caused by lack of job
opportunities for youth in the latter
Unemployment and adult crime
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By early 1980’s several studies demonstrated that unemployment and
crime rose and fell together (weak relationship)
In a 1987 review of 63 studies, Chiricos found a significant positive
relationship between unemployment and crime, especially after 1970
– More unemployment, more crime
– Easier to discover in small units (e.g., cities) because they are more
homogeneous than larger units (e.g., States and regions)
Disagreeing, Land, McCall and Cohen found the opposite for homicides
– As unemployment increased, homicides decreased!
Land, Cantor and Russell found a weak negative relationship between
unemployment and crime between 1960-1980
– As unemployment increased, crime decreased
– Agreed that the positive relationship found by Chiricos is more likely
to be found in smaller units of analysis and for property crimes
Unemployment Rate (percent) 1989-2008
ages 16 years and over
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Crime Rates 1989 - 2008
Uniform Crime Reports
Types of jobs and crime
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White – 1970 -1990: decline of manufacturing jobs 
increased poverty and unemployment  increased robberies,
burglaries, drug offenses
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PoliceIssues link - manufacturing jobs
Shihadeh – 1970 -1990: decline of low-skill jobs  increased
poverty  increased violence
Problems in Interpreting Research on
Economic Conditions
Problem #1: Poverty is subjective
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Relative to locale
Differently measured
Unemployment is an unexact concept
– People not actively seeking work are not counted
– Count the under-employed, poorly paid dead-end jobs, bad
working conditions
How people feel about their jobs is not measured
Problem #2: Economy and crime -Two contradictory theories, with support for each!
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Traditional view: relationship between economic conditions and crime is negative
(poverty causes crime)
– Good economy, low crime; bad economy, high crime
Oppositional view: Positive relationship (crime is like any other economic activity)
– Good economy, high crime; bad economy, low crime
Ploscowe - 1931: support for positive relationship
Increase of economic well-being during 150-year period accompanied by
increase in crime
– Good economy  greater criminal opportunities  more crime
Gurr – 1977: support for positive and negative relationships
– Crime actually declined from 1840’s-1930’s
– Later increases may be due to better police reporting
– Different causal process at work in each time frame
 19th. Century - economic activity positively related to crime
 20th. Century - economic “distress” had no effect, but as total productivity
increased, so did crime
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Problem #3: Economic change has a delayed
(lagged) effect on crime
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Unemployment takes time to increase crime - unemployed don’t feel
the full brunt of being out of work until other sources of support are
exhausted
Perhaps there is no corresponding “lag time” for increased
opportunities to commit crime - economic improvement immediately
increases criminal opportunities
Cantor and Lang - 1946-1982 - US unemployment rates and crime
index
– Immediate “opportunity” effect and lagged “motivation” effect. As
unemployment increased…
 Robbery, burglary and theft immediately decreased but then
increased the next year
 Homicide and auto theft decreased, did not increase the next
year
 No effect on rape and assault
Problem #4: Determining the size of the unit that
economic factors affect
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Local conditions are very important
– In economically stagnant inner cities, there may be declining
amount of legal work and increasing amount of illegal work (e.g.,
dealing drugs)
– Early involvement in crime and incarceration may limit later
opportunities
– Alienation and diminished expectations
– Low-paying work is stigmatized
– Violence substitutes for normal social controls
– Once socialized into illegal activities, people may continue them
Problem #5: Determining which factors cause
crime (problem of multicollinearity)
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High crime areas have many factors that might cause crime
– Poverty
– Unemployment
– Single-parent households
– High density
– Poor schools
Study by Land - the most important determinants of homicide were
clustered in a single factor: “resource deprivation/affluence”
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This factor includes measures for...
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poverty & income inequality
percent African-American
Percent children not living with both parents
Problem #6: Distinguishing between poverty and
economic inequality
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Poverty: below a fixed level of income or material goods
Inequality: relative deprivation
Consistent findings
– Economic inequality associated with homicide
– Economic inequality associated with violent crime
 Firearms violence strongly correlated with inequality after
controlling for poverty and access to firearms
Is it a specific kind of inequality (e.g., white/black)?
– Messner and Golden - 1992 - increased inequality between blacks
and whites associated with homicide
– Other studies report mixed results
Poverty and economic inequality -Conclusions
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Overall inequality (gap between rich and poor) is associated with
violent crime
Key factor may not be how many poor, but how many wealthy
– When there are only poor people around, crime may be lower
– Economics may have most direct affect on crime within the urban
“underclass” - pockets of extreme poverty
Strong association between poverty and violence
Direct effect of poverty on crime is mediated by many other variables
– High-crime communities have a host of factors - poverty,
unemployment, single-parent households, poor schools
– These factors may be more proximate causes of crime; e.g.
Poverty  poor schools  unemployment  broken homes 
crime