Why US crime is in decline

[Gob]

US crime figures: Why the drop?



By Tom Geoghegan BBC News, Washington DC

For 20 years, crime in the US has been falling and new figures from the FBI show a sharp drop in the last two years, despite the recession. Why?

Through Democratic and Republican administrations and through booms and busts, crime has been falling since 1991.

Murder and robbery rates nearly halved from 1991-98, a phenomenon that has saved thousands of lives and spared many more potential victims of crime.

The pace of the reduction slowed in the late 90s but new FBI figures show the sharp drop in crime that began around 2008 continued last year, despite high unemployment.

No-one agrees on the reasons for this. Here are 10 possible theories.

1. The Obama effect could explain the increased pace of the reduction of the last few years, says one of the country's top criminologists, Alfred Blumstein. "The prior expectation was that the recession would have the opposite effect. The question then is what distinctive event occurred in '09?" The election of a black president could have inspired some young black men, who are disproportionately involved in arrests for robbery and homicide, says the professor. It's very speculative, he adds, and probably only one factor of many, as one of the cities with a huge drop in crime is Phoenix, in Arizona, which does not have a large black population. "In the field of criminology, you don't get consistent indicators as you would in physics. There are so many factors that could have contributed." A separate study on school test scores supports the view that some black teenagers were motivated to try harder by the new presidency.

2. The fall in violent crime that began in the early 90s can be partly explained by the fall in demand for crack, says Prof Blumstein, co-author of The Crime Drop in America. Word got round about the dangers of crack use and - aided by aggressive policing - the gun violence associated with its supply decreased. The converse had happened in 1985, when the incarceration of dealers led to a spiral of violence, as younger and more reckless suppliers took their place.

3. Smarter policing helped the border city of Laredo in Texas to reduce car theft by 40% last year. Police spokesman Joe Baeza says they introduced a scheme whereby motorists could register their car number plates into a police database and this empowered patrol cars to stop these cars if they were spotted late at night, to verify the owners. Mr Baeza adds that they also targeted car theft networks, educated the community about prevention and promoted anti-theft devices.

4. Number crunching has also helped in Laredo, where overall crime fell 16% last year, says Mr Baeza. "CompStat is a crime mapping project that pinpoints crime peaks in different parts of the city. The police chief then sends a team of officers to reinforce hotspots for burglaries or thefts or robberies, and they hold steady the flow of criminality." The CompStat methods began in New York City and featured heavily in gritty television drama The Wire, set in Baltimore.

5. There is a controversial theory put forward by economist Steven Levitt that the increased availability of legal abortion after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on Roe v Wade meant that fewer children were born to young, poor, single mothers. This, says the theory, stopped unwanted babies in the 1970s and 80s from becoming adolescent criminals in the decades that followed. But some of his peers have questioned whether the evidence really supports the theory.

6. A sociologist at Tufts University, John Conklin, says a significant factor behind the fall in crime in the 1990s was the fact that more criminals were behind bars and therefore unable to offend. In his book Why Crime Rates Fell, he says sentencing was lenient in the 60s and 70s, when crime rose, and then more prisons were built and more offenders were imprisoned. But others question why crime has continued to fall recently when budget constraints have kept the prison population relatively flat.

7. An economist at Amherst College in Massachusetts links the fall in violent crime to a decline in children's exposure to lead in petrol. Jessica Wolpaw Reyes says: "Even low to moderate levels of exposure can lead to behavioural problems, reduced IQ, hyperactivity and juvenile delinquency. You can link the decline in lead between 1975 and 1985 to a decline in violent crime 20 years later." About 90% of American children in the 1970s had blood levels that would today cause concern, she says. Her research also found a link at state level between the timing of laws banning lead and subsequent crime statistics.

8. The baby boomers grew up. With birth rates peaking between 1957 and 1961, the proportion of men in the US in their late teens and early 20s was highest in the late 70s and early 80s. As time went on, the proportion of people at "criminal age" decreased.

9. A study released last month suggested video games were keeping young people off the streets and therefore away from crime. Researchers in Texas working with the Centre for European Economic Research said this "incapacitation effect" more than offset any direct impact the content of the games may have had in encouraging violent behaviour.

10. Some people have suggested to Professor Blumstein there is another technological deterrent and that is the proliferation of camera phones, which makes some criminals think twice before risking possible incrimination on film. The impact of other kinds of cameras is unclear. In the UK, the influence of CCTV on crime is disputed.

[rubato]

This is a VERY old story. More than a decade old.


"...
5. There is a controversial theory put forward by economist Steven Levitt that the increased availability of legal abortion after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on Roe v Wade meant that fewer children were born to young, poor, single mothers. This, says the theory, stopped unwanted babies in the 1970s and 80s from becoming adolescent criminals in the decades that followed. But some of his peers have questioned whether the evidence really supports the theory. ... "

The fine granularity in the data strongly supports this theory. Different states provided access to abortion at different times after Roe V Wade and of course some states like Calif. liberalized abortion laws before Roe v Wade. The timing of the drops in the crime rate in each of these areas follows closely the time when abortion was avail.



yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

I thought this was going to be a thread about Robocop...

[Long Run]

As also noted by Leavitt's research, locking up bad guys for longer periods of time produces lower crime rates, as does more police on the streets. Probably a variety of these factors and some listed above. We still spend way too much money on controlling people's drug vices, even if there is less crime.

[dgs49]

When I was back there in undergrad school and studying criminology (1971-6), the commonly-held belief was that the crime rate was directly proportionate to the number of males ages 16-29 in the population, who commit the vast proportion of all crime, particularly violent crime.

Also, the huge and disproportionate number of people in our jails and prisons has to play a role.

And of course, lots of our potential criminals are playing professional football - and we hope this continues.

Particularly noteworthy, however, is the phrase, "...despite the recession..." in the article. This presupposes that crime is committed to meet human needs. Only someone totally unfamiliar with the phenomenon could have this ridiculous viewpoint going in. The number of crimes committed out of NEED is miniscule.

[Andrew D]

Well. maybe the number of crimes committed to obtain what the criminal ought to need is small.

But the number of crimes committed to obtain what the criminal actually does need is not small.

No one ought to need her or his next crack hit or meth hit or whatever. But many people do need it. And they need it in a big way.

I'm not talking about wanting it. I'm talking about needing it. A deep, all-consuming need. A need that makes "I need food, because I haven't eaten in a week" seem trivial.

No, I have never been a crack addict or a meth addict. But I have held enough hands and wiped enough brows and cleaned up enough puke to know what I am talking about.

Of course, if we were to wake up and treat drug addiction as health issue rather than a crime issue, a substantial portion of that -- by no means all, but a substantial portion -- would go away.

[BoSoxGal]

The reason a recession/economy is relevant to crime rates generally is that higher unemployment rates equates to more young males without the grounding and opportunity of gainful employment, thus potentially involved in criminal activity.

[Long Run]

The reason a recession/economy is relevant to crime rates generally is that higher unemployment rates equates to more young males without the grounding and opportunity of gainful employment, thus potentially involved in criminal activity.

That has been a theory for many years, but I am not aware of any research that backs up this up, e.g., there is the oft-cited statistic that crime dropped significantly in the Great Depression when many people were just trying to survive.

As Andrew notes, the need for drug fixes is a huge driver in the amount of crime. If there is a significant trend down in the amount of crime, then it is likely that something has occurred to reduce the amount of drug users, whether that is a demographic shift, more drug users locked up, or what have you. The latest data appears to follow prior data which belies the theory that bad economic prospects = more crime.

[Crackpot]

THe broad shift to "legal" drugs and pill mills?

[BoSoxGal]

It would be interesting to see more about how they calculate the decline - is it only murder & robbery being counted? In my jurisdiction we see few of either, but many cases of felony theft & burglary, and many felony assaults with a weapon. Is it a matter of degree? Folks are still stealing as often, but not using threat of harm in the process? Folks are still violently attacking others, but not so often killing the victims?

Curious.

[rubato]

This thread illustrates what a load of bloviating crap this board is. None of you has read any of the relevant literature. None.



yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

Are you talking about the Harry Potter or the Twilight series?