Relationship between Criminality and Economic Conditions

Abstract

For more than a century students of social conditions in Europe and America have investigated the relationship between criminality and economic fluctuations. Most of them have concluded that the volume of crime, or of certain types of crime, is influenced by economic conditions in general or by certain aspects of economic conditions. Summaries of these studies by Bonger,2 Sellin,3 and Thomas4 present an imposing array of supporting evidence. This thesis could be definitely established or definitely rejected if the total amount of crime, or the total amount of certain types of crime, could be compared with the vibrations or cycles in actual economic conditions or in certain aspects of economic conditions, but neither criminality nor economic phenomena are measurable directly. The early European studies described by Bonger rely on the prices of rye, wheat, or other cereals as indexes of economic conditions, while later studies use commodity price indexes, pauperism, wages, real wages, employment, cotton prices, pig-iron production, railroad freight ton mileage, and combinations of several items. The index of criminality may be derived from crimes known to the police, arrests, convictions, commitments or other available recorded data. The index of general criminality thus derived may be further divided into crimes against property, crimes against person, crimes against public order, or other subdivisions. One or more crime indexes is then correlated with one or more economic indexes. Are the economic fluctuations described in the index a sensitive