the impact of economic conditions on property and violent crime rates
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The Impact of Economic Conditions on Property and Violent Crime Rates. Richard Rosenfeld University of Missouri-St. Louis. Prior Research. Economy and crime hardly a hot spot of current research activity Research on unemployment and crime rates inconclusive - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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The Impact of Economic Conditions on Property and
Violent Crime Rates
Richard RosenfeldUniversity of Missouri-St. Louis
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Prior Research
Economy and crime hardly a hot spot of current research activity
Research on unemployment and crime rates inconclusive
Recent research on general economic conditions and crime more promising*
*Arvanites, Thomas M. and Robert H. Defina. 2006. “Business Cycles and Street Crime.” Criminology 44:139-164.
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Measuring Economic Conditions
General v. specific measures Objective v. subjective measures Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS)
– Consumer expectations well validated as a leading economic indicator
– Focus on collective perceptions relevant to economic and sociological crime theories
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Theoretical Expectations
Economic theory: benefits minus costsSociological theory
– Social context– Motivation v. opportunity effects
Hypothesized mechanism: Underground markets
Plausibility of logic model
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Hypotheses
H1: Crime rates rise with perceived deterioration in economic conditions
H2: Effects of ICS independent of those of unemployment, wages, or GDP
H3: ICS accounts for sizable fraction of 90s crime drop
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Collective Economic Perceptions and Property Crime*
Four crime types: robbery, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft
Time period: 1970-2003 (with extension to 2005) Regional panel models estimated on first
differenced series (N = 4 regions x 34 years = 136)
Controls: prisoners, police, age, race, unemployment, GDP, lagged ICS, lagged DV, trend, region effects
*Rosenfeld, Richard and Robert Fornango. 2007. “The Impact of Economic Conditions on Robbery and Property Crime: The Role of
Consumer Sentiment.” Criminology 45: 735-769.
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Results
Consistent ICS effects across all crime types – contemporaneous and lagged (except motor vehicle theft)
Consistent imprisonment effects (except larceny)
Less consistent effects for unemployment and GDP
ICS explains appreciable fraction of 1990s crime drop
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Robbery Burglary Larceny MV Theft
ICS -.308*** -.241*** -.176*** -.340***
ICS-1 -.278*** -.195*** -.133** ns
Unem -.023** ns ns -.024**
GDP -.544* ns -.432** ns
Prison-1 -.285*** -.276*** ns -.253***
~R2 .650 .699 .593 .456 ***p < .001 **p < .01 *p < .05 Police, age, race, lagged DV, region, trend suppressed. ~R2 = square of correlation between predicted and observed values.
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Figure 1. Year-Over-Year Change in Observed and Predicted Log Robbery Rates, 1970 - 2005 (Out-of-Sample Predictions for 2004 and
2005)
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Cha
nge
in L
og R
ate
per
100,
000
Observed Predicted
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The 1990s Crime Drop
– Robbery -7.2%– Burglary -5.7%– Larceny -2.8%– MV theft -5.2%
– ICS +4.3%– Prison +4.7%– GDP +2.5%
Average Yearly Change, 1992-2000
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Percentage of the Crime Drop Attributable to Economy and
Imprisonment
Robbery Burglary Larceny MV Theft
ICS 35.3% 33.0% 48.5% 28.5%
GDP 18.9% -- 39.1% --
Prison 18.7% 22.7% -- 23.0%
Total 72.9% 55.7% 87.6% 51.5%
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Extension to Violent Crime*
Property crime affects violent crime– Violence as social control in “stateless”
locationsProperty crime should mediate effect of
ICS on homicideReplication of previous analysis on
homicide rates*Rosenfeld, Richard. 2009. “Crime is the Problem: Homicide, Acquisitive Crime, and
Economic Conditions.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 25: 287-306.
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US Homicide Rates and Consumer Sentiment (Detrended), 1960-2005
-2.5
-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Homicide
Consumer Sentiment
r = -.75
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US Homicide Rates and Consumer Sentiment (Detrended), 1960-2005
-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Homicide
Consumer Sentiment(Inverted)
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0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
A. Homicide and Acquisitive Crime Rates
Homicide
Acquisitive Crime
r = .938
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-1
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
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0
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1
-300
-200
-100
0
100
200
300
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
B. Year-Over-Year Change in Homicide and Acquisitive Crime Rates
Homicide
Acquisitive Crime
r = .770
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Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Prop Crime Homicide Homicide
Prop Crime --- --- .539*
ICS -.251* -.314# -.153
ICS-1 -.245* -.212 -.065
Prison-1 -.314* -.332* -.148
R2 .839 .768 .782 *p < .05 #p < .10
“Prop crime” includes robbery, excludes larceny. Police, age, race, unemployment, GDP, region and year fixed effects not shown.
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Direct and Indirect Effects of Consumer Sentiment and Imprisonment on Property Crime and Homicide
Property Crime Homicide
ICS
Imprisonment
.539*
-.251*
-.314*
*p < .05
ICS-1 -.245*
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Conclusions Collective perceptions of economic conditions
related to changes in property crime and robbery Crime reduction effects of consumer sentiment
largely independent of those of other economic indicators
Economy and imprisonment explain much of 1990s crime drop
Effect of collective economic perceptions on homicide mediated by property crime
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Implications for Crime Control Policy cannot stop the business cycle Forcible suppression of underground
markets neither feasible nor desirable Strengthen participation of the poor, as
consumers and workers, in the legitimate economy
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Recent Past
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-2.50
-2.00
-1.50
-1.00
-0.50
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Robbery Rate and Consumer Pessimism, 2000 - 2007(Standard Measures)
RobberyPessimism
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-2.50
-2.00
-1.50
-1.00
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0.00
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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Homicide Rate and Consumer Pessimism, 2000-2007(Standard Measures)
Pessimism Homicide
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Crime and the 2008-09 Recession Crime did not rise in 2008
– Burglary up slightly
Recession deepened with financial crash in fall 2008
Some lag between economic conditions and crime
No systematic data for 2009 Need to improve crime-monitoring infrastructure
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Building the Infrastructure
Meaningful policy evaluation requires timely data Reasonable objectives
– Disseminate annual UCR data 3 months after reporting year
– Disseminate quarterly data for a sample of jurisdictions
– Eventual quarterly dissemination for all jurisdictions Time to consider transferring the UCR program from
the FBI to Justice Department’s statistical arm, the Bureau of Justice Statistics