Population Growth and Crime

Abstract

It seems trite to point out that if Australia's population doubled, then the incidence of crime in Australia would double. However, the proposition that the crime rate would more than double and perhaps increase four or six fold, is not so obvious. It is the purpose of this paper to show that population growth increases the crime rate (per capita). One effect of population increase is growth in the average size of cities and towns. If the effect of a doubling of the population is spread evenly among all communities: then towns of 5,000 will become towns of 10,000; cities of 1 million will become cities of 2 million; and so on. Crime and City size - Theory Much theorising has been done on the question of why larger cities have higher crime rates than smaller communities. Large cities are said to be characterised by anonymity. In aworld of strangers men lose theirfeelingsof responsibility for their fellow man. The anonymity of the city permits the criminal to commit his offence with little fear of being recognised. Anony­ mity is thought to be particularly important in the causation of juvenile crime. The small town delinquent is likely to have his behaviour reported back to his parents by adult bystanders. However, in the, anonymity of the big city, chances are that the bystanders will not know the delinquent and there­ fore will nei ther reprimand him themselves nor report the behaviour back to his parents. Thus primary social control in the large city is weak. The absence of social control implies social disorga 6 ' tion. This dis­ organisation in large scale cities is manifested in high .... tor divorce, sep­ aration, suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse and other forms of deviance. In the deviant climate of the large city all moral prohibitions are weakened through their apparent lack of force. Thus absence of primary social control in large cities produce both crime and other manifestations of social disorganisation. Some of these other manifestations of social disorganisation further contrib­ ute to crime. For example there is a great deal of empirical evidence that broken homes are associated with delinquency. (Eaton and Polk, 1961). ., The sheer numbers of people in the large city ensures that people with criminal tendencies can find people with similar tendencies to provide social support for their criminality. In small towns there are simply !10~ enough criminals or poor people to allow the criminogenic influence of criminal sub­ cultures and ghettos to develop.