1. Crime & Economic Conditions

2.  Are in sharp contrast to the theories that use
the person’s biological or psychological
makeup to explain crime.
 This theory is the oldest of a non-individual
nature.

3.  And they have
generated a lot of
inquiry into the
relationship
between poverty
and crime

4. Is crime caused by poverty?
Is there a relationship
between crime rates and
unemployment rates?
Does crime go up when we
are in a depression?

5.  Is crime related to economic inequality?
 Poverty existing next to wealth
 Is it stressful?

6.  What will we find when we examine wealthy
areas and poor areas?
 When we find poor people, will we find crime?

7. ?????????????

8. Contradictions & Disagreements

9.  Remember Guerry & Quetelet?
 In the early 1800s in France, they tried to
show a relationship between crime and
poverty.
 They compared the wealthy areas to poor
areas.

10. Mentioned together because there was
only but 2 years separating their
contributions.

11.  French lawyer
 French crime
statistics first
published in 1827
 Published an
analysis of them
 Appointed director
of criminal statistics
for the French
Ministry of Justice

12.  He showed crime rates in relation to
social factors of an area
 Before Guerry, the belief was that:
 Crime associated with poverty
 Crime associated with lack of education
 Instead, he found that the wealthiest
areas of France had the highest property
crimes

13.  Said poverty did
not cause crime
 Opportunity did
 There was more
to steal in the
wealthier areas

14.  Areas with the highest education had the
highest rates of violent crime
 Education Violent crime
 The lowest rates of violent crime were found
in areas with the lowest education levels
 Education Violent Crime

16.  His 1827 work on French crime statistics
allow others to call his work:
 1st work of scientific criminology
 Therefore, he lays the foundation for the
scientific study of crime

17.  Belgian
mathematician and
astronomer who
turned his attention
to French crime
statistics in 1828.
 Opportunities
related to the
commission of crime

18.  Inequalities
between wealth and
poverty in the same
place an issue
 “The great
inequality between
wealth and poverty
in the same place
excites passions and
provokes
temptations of all
kinds.” (p. 24)

19.  Wealthy areas had more property crime
 But less violent crime
 What can you conclude from this?

20.  Where there was more property crime, there
was more opportunity
 Associate opportunity with Guerry
 There was more stuff to steal
 A bigger selection
 Inequality causes resentment by the poor
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLSHJI6dxJo
&feature=related

21.  “The crimes which are annually committed
seem to be a necessary result of our social
organization…
 Society prepares the crime, and the guilty
are only the instruments by which it is
executed.”

22.  When everyone is poor, everyone is more or
less equal.
 There is less inequity.
 Where are some wealthy areas and poor
areas? (nationally)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4DHpsxC
pDs

23.  Logically, during an economic downturn,
crime should increase.
 Many studies find this is not the case
 And crime even decreases. Why?
 During an upswing…less crime

24.  In the 1960s and 1970s, US had great economic expansion.
 But crime still rose.
 Peaked in the early 1980s.
 But in the 1990s, again during economic expansion, crime
begins to decline

25.  In economic upswings, there are still poor
people
 Are there more poor in these times?
 Is there more inequality?

26.  Cho, 1974
 Jacobs, 1981
 Ehrlich, 1974
 Loftin & Hill, 1974
 Lee, 2000

27.  Used 1970 statistics
 Looked at people below the poverty line in
the 49 largest U.S. cities
 No correlation between:
 The 7 FBI Index crimes

29.  He looked at crime rates of burglary, robbery
and grand larceny
 Again looked at the poverty line
 And again, found no correlation

30.  Looked at state property crime rates for:
 1940, 1950, 1960
 Percentage of households getting less < half
of the median income
 Found a positive relationship

31.  Looked at:
 Infant mortality
 Low education
 Income
 1-parent families
 And murder rates
 Found strong
correlations
 This was an “Index
of Structural
Poverty”

32.  Both borrowed the Index of Structural
Poverty
 Murders between family & friends
 There was a strong correlation here
 Again, with the earlier measures
 But no correlation with stranger homicides

33.  They differ according to the different
geographical regions

34.  Used 1990 data with
121 cities
 Looked at where
poor people live
 Concentrated poverty
vs
 Dispersed among the
middle-class
 Found concentrated
poverty more
important in
explaining homicide
 Good for blacks &
whites

35.  Used similar data
 Again looked at dispersed & concentrated
poverty for blacks and whites

36.  Their findings:
 Both dispersed and concentrated poverty
affected murder rates for whites only
 If blacks generally live together, it did not affect
murder rates

37.  Found that concentrated poverty did not by
itself have a significant effect on violent
crime in cities, but that the interaction of
concentrated poverty and overall poverty did
make a difference for robberies and
homocides.

38.  “For cities with higher poverty levels, the
more concentrated the poverty, the greater
rate of robberies and homicides.” (text, page
98)

39. A Detailed Look at Research

40.  Unemployment causes crime
 Crime increase ~ unemployment high
 Crime decreases ~ unemployment low
 Based on these assumptions:
 Unemployment causes poverty
 Poverty causes crime

41.  There must be a direct relationship between:
 Crime & unemployment

42. Glaser & Rice, 1968 Danser & Laub, 1973
Ehrlich, 1973 Berk, 1980
Chiricos, 1987 Land et al, 1990
White, 1999 Weatherburn and Lind,
2001

43.  Delinquency inversely related to adult
unemployment
 Delinquency is high when adult unemployment is
low
 When employed, parents not available
 Kids less likely to become delinquent when
parents are not employed

44.  Delinquency is high when adult
unemployment is high
 Suggested that parents who are
unemployed are stressed and may use
erratic harsh punishments with their
children
 Remember: The relationship between
harsh erratic punishments and
delinquency
 Erratic punishment delinquency

45.  1. Among high-risk high school males:
 Employment while in school increases
delinquency
 [Does school become less important?]
 2. Delinquency high when juveniles
unemployed

46.  With juvenile delinquency & juvenile
unemployment…
 Found no relationships between the 2
 Even when they broke it out into
 Age
 Sex
 Race

47.  Unemployment had no effect on the
criminality of urban males…
 Age 14 - 24

48.  “For ex-offenders at least, unemployment
and poverty do cause crime.” (text, page
100)
 For ex-inmates, there is a relationship
between unemployment & crime
 If unemployed, they will go back to what
they know:
 Crime

49.  No original research
 But secondary
research
 Found that the
relationship
between
unemployment &
crime:
 Is positive
 Frequently significant
 Especially for property
crime after 1970

50.  Also argued that the positive relationship
between unemployment and crime is more
likely to be found when smaller units
(neighborhoods) are examined rather than
larger units (nations) because these smaller
units “are more likely to be homogeneous.”
(text, page 100)

51.  Find weak negative relationships between
crime & unemployment
 Negative for homicide
 Negative for robbery
 Positive but nonsignificant for
 Rape
 Assault

52.  At least from 1960 – 1980
 Weak negative relationship exists between
crime & unemployment
 Crime goes DOWN when unemployment goes UP
 But not by very much

53.  Looked at specific types of unemployment
 Like in manufacturing jobs
 Manufacturing job losses did lead to:
 Poverty and then crime, especially in:
 Robberies, burglaries, and drug-related crimes

54.  Effect on violent crimes like
 Murder and aggravated assault
 Were people marginal?

55.  Data from 1970 – 1990
 Central cities only
 Found that declines in availability in low-skill
jobs results in:
 Increased poverty
 Increased violence among African Americans and
European Americans

56. There are 6 major problems with
interpreting this kind of research.

57.  Poverty is always in part a subjective
condition.
 What one person considers poverty is acceptable,
while another may not
 There is no clear definition of poverty
 Unemployment also an unclear term

58.  There are 2 contradictory theoretical
assumptions about the relationship between
economic conditions and crime. The 1st
assumption:
 When economy good, crime is low
 When economy bad, crime high

59.  The 2nd
assumption:
 Crime an extension
of economic activity
 Crime high when
economy good
 Crime low when
economy poor

60.  When economic conditions get better, there
are also new pressures and demands
 In other words…
 When there are more legitimate opportunities,
there will be more crime.

61.  Specifying the amount of time before
economic changes are said to have an effect
on criminality.
 There should be a lag period
 People only experience the full effects of
unemployment after some period of time

62.  After losing their job, they probably:
 Still have some money
 Still are OK psychology
 So people still have some time to “get it
together”

63.  Determining the size of the unit that
economic factors affect.
 The smaller the unit the bigger the impact.
 If Ward Manufacturing closes in Blossburg, it will
cause a major impact here, but not nationally.

64.  In the inner cities, legitimate opportunities
have declined while illegal opportunities
have increased.
 Illegal work is more financially rewarding and
more appealing than legal work– pimping &
drugs

65.  Legal work is defined poorly and carries a
negative social stigma
 Working at McDonalds

66.  But which factors actually cause crime to
increase?
 Poverty
 Unemployment
 Single parents
 Divorce
 Poor schools
 Low education

67.  This problem is referred to as
 “multicollinearity” or
 …a number of possible causal factors which are
all highly intercorrelated with each other

68.  Distinguishing Between Concepts of:
 Poverty
 Economic Inequality.
 These concepts are wholly separate &
distinct

69.  A lack of some fixed level of material goods
necessary for survival and minimum well-
being.
 Examples: Food, Water, Heat

70.  A comparison between the material level of
those who have the least in a society and the
material level of other groups.
 The “haves versus the have-nots.”

71.  Some countries have very little poverty, but
the economic inequality is immense.
 Likewise, in countries where everyone is
poor, there may be little or no economic
inequality.

72.  Found between:
 Economic inequality
 Homicide
 Around 1990, 50
countries found
firearm violence
was strongly
correlated with
economic
inequality

73.  154 cities
 A racial inequality study
 Found that increased levels of inequality
between whites & blacks were associated
with higher…
 Black
 White and
 Total homicide rates

74.  Racial inequality affects the social order that
increases criminogenic pressure.

75.  Found that at the
neighborhood level
of analysis, income
inequality within
racial groups, not
across racial
groups, was
associated with
higher rates of
violent crime.

76.  “ that individuals may compare themselves
to other similar individuals (e.g., of the same
race) when feeling inequalities in income.”
(text, page 106)

77.  There appears to be a strong case which
suggests that the economic inequality in a
society-the gap between the richest and the
poorest- has a causal impact on the level of
violence in that society.

78.  Poor people (underclass) tend to commit
more violent crime when there are many
wealthy people around them. (text, page
106)

79.  It appears that unemployment, but not
poverty, has a direct causal impact on crime
and delinquency

80.  “Almost without exception, studies of
violence find a positive and usually large
correlation between some measure of area
poverty and violence-especially homicide.” (
text, page 106)

81.  In the end,
poverty itself does
not directly cause
crime because
crime rates do not
consistently
increase and
decrease as the
number of poor
people increases
and decreases.

82.  Both poverty and inequality are associated
with crime, especially violent crime.
 Inequality breeds
 Frustration
 Frustration breeds behavioral problems

83.  But it is another question as to whether or
not they are the actual CAUSES of crime
 Not just ASSOCIATED WITH

84.  So what is more significant in this search for
crime?
 Poverty or
 Inequality
 A stronger case can be made for disparity

85.  If you accept this,
than you are
consistent with
the notion that
crime increases
with the number
of wealthy growing
in number.

86.  The case for linking:
 crime to poverty is WEAK
 The case for linking:
 Crime to inequality is STRONGER

87.  If that is the case,
than more
attention should
be paid to the
rising number of
 Wealthy, and not
the
 Poor

88.  There has been a concentration of extreme
poverty in the inner-city areas.
 These are the “have-nots”
 And studies, at the local level, seem to
suggest that violence is correlated with
poverty

89.  But still, some contend that poverty DOES
NOT CAUSE crime
 How do they know this?
 As the number of poor people increase, the
crime rate does not change with it.