Changes In Crime Rates Research Articles

The Politics of Punishment: Evaluating Political Explanations of Incarceration Rates

Why have incarceration rates dramatically increased even as crime rates have remained stable or even declined? This is a question of considerable policy and theoretical relevance that currently has no satisfactory answer. I attempt to address this question by examining the key political explanations of prison populations and the unit of analysis and data limitation obstacles that make it difficult to conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of these frameworks. I address these issues and undertake such an analysis using a pooled state-level analysis covering the years 1980–1995. Results suggest that the growth in prison populations has little to do with changes in crime rates or government response to citizen attitudes. Instead it is the most basic elements of the political environment (partisanship and elections) and the continuing legacy of racial social cleavages that explain why incarceration rates have increased.

Lost primacy: crime in Italy at the end of the twentieth century

This article attempts to answer four questions. First: has Italy today, or has it had in the last thirty years, rates of theft, robbery and homicide that are higher than those in other western European countries? Second: have crime statistics in Italy followed the same pattern as in other European countries in the same period? Third: have crime statistics become more or less comparable in the western European countries in this period? Fourth: what factors have determined changes in crime rates in Italy in recent decades?

Crimes of Opportunity or Crimes of Emotion? Testing Two Explanations of Seasonal Change in Crime

While past research has suggested possible seasonal trends in crime rates, this study employs a novel methodology that directly models these changes and predicts them with explanatory variables. Using a nonlinear latent curve model, seasonal fluctuations in crime rates are modeled for a large number of communities in the U.S. over a three-year period with a focus on testing the theoretical predictions of two key explanations for seasonal changes in crime rates: the temperature/aggression and routine activities theories. Using data from 8,460 police units in the U.S. over the 1990 to 1992 period, we found that property crime rates are primarily driven by pleasant weather, consistent with the routine activities theory. Violent crime exhibited evidence in support of both theories.

Does More Crime Mean More Prisoners? An Instrumental Variables Approach

This paper studies the �mechanical theory� of crime and incarceration—�the notion that changes in imprisonment are partially determined by changes in crime rates. Previous studies found scant evidence supporting the mechanical theory. These studies, however, failed to properly control for simultaneity between incarceration rates and crime rates. While more crime may lead to larger prison populations, rising incarceration rates may deter crime. To address this bias, abortion rates in the 1970s are used as an instrument for crime in later decades. Abortion rates in the 1970s are correlated with crime in the 1990s but are unlikely to be otherwise related to incarceration or prison admissions rates in the 1990s. The instrumental variables approach finds that the estimated elasticity of prison admissions with respect to crime is approximately 1, in accord with the mechanical theory. This finding has important implications for understanding trends in the U.S. prison population.

Confirming More Guns, Less Crime

Analyzing county level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year. Ayres and Donohue have simply misread their own results. Their own most generalized specification that breaks down the impact of the law on a year-by-year basis shows large crime reducing benefits. Virtually none of their claims that their county level hybrid model implies initial significant increases in crime are correct. Overall, the vast majority of their estimates based on data up to 1997 actually demonstrate that right-to-carry laws produce substantial crime reducing benefits. We show that their models also do an extremely poor job of predicting the changes in crime rates after 1997.

Breaking Away from Broken Windows: Baltimore Neighborhoods and the Nationwide Fight against Crime, Grime, Fear, and Decline

* List of Tables and Figures * Acknowledgments * List of Acronyms Part 1: Background on the Place, the Theory, and Policies * 1. Introduction * Philadelphia, Pennsylvania * Oakland, California * Focus * Incivilities, Disorder, Social Disorganization, Collective Efficacy, and Social Capital * Broader Theoretical and Empirical Context of Current Approaches * Evidence * The Argument and the Chapters Ahead * The Bottom Line, * Notes * References * 2. The Baltimore Context, and Its Context * With Charles David Linne * The War Has Been Won? * Purpose * Changes in People, Housing, and Jobs * Changes in Crime: The City as a Whole * Baltimore Neighborhood Crime Rates * Shifting Incivilities, 1981-1994 * Summary Comments on Changes * The Questions of Fear and Neighborhood Problems * In the News * Notes * References * 3. The Incivilities Thesis: Theory, Measurement, and Policy * Organization * Variations on a Theme * Empirical Support for Hypotheses * A Theoretical Aside on Demographic and Structural Issues * From Theory to Research: Incivilities Indicators * Implications for Policy, Practice, and Theory * Notes * References Part 2: Quantitative Evidence on Origins and Impacts * 4. Origins of Incivilities * A Story About One Broken Window * Focus and Organization * Perspectives on the Origins of Incivilities * An Unexciting, but Necessary, Methodological Aside on Change * Another Necessary, but Unexciting, Aside on Multilevel Models * Overview of Indicators, Outcomes, and Controls * Incivilities Observed * Incivilities As Perceived by Residents * Discussion * Notes * References * 5. Impacts of Incivilities on Later Crime and Decline * A Systemic Perspective * Focus * Data and Analysis, * Changes on Decline Indicators in the 1980s * Crime Rate Changes * Predicting Decline * Discussion * Notes * References * 6. Longitudinal Impacts of Incivilities on Reactions to Crime and Local Commitment * Reactions to Crime * Focus * Data and Analysis * Impacts of Specific Predictors * Closing Thoughts, * Support for Longitudinal Impacts of Incivilities * Notes * References Part 3: Qualitative Evidence from Community Leaders * 7. The Community Perspective: Views About Incivilities and Responses to Incivilities in the Context of Collective Crime Prevention Initiatives * Organization of the Chapter and Questions Addressed * What Influences the Type of Collective Strategies Adopted? Podolefsky's Model * Data Sources * Responses to Drug Sales and Use and Related Crime Problems * Neighborhood Fabric and Responses to Crime and Drug Sales and Use * Closing Comments * Appendix: Sample Selection Procedures and Contact Attempts * Notes * References * 8. Place Power and Implications for Coproduced Safety: Changes and Stability in Neighborhood Names, Boundaries, and Organizations * Neighborhood Mapping and Current Data Sources * Organization * Naming and Bounding * Service Delivery Issues and Community Policing * Stability and Changes * Implications: Can Police-Community Partnerships Organize Around Neighborhood Units? * Summary * Notes * References * 9. Closing Thoughts * Context and Ironies * Does the Theory Get Support? * The Context Outside the Theory, * Notes * References * Index

The Jewish Exodus from the New South Africa: Realities and Implications

In the 1990s, the Jewish population of South Africa declined at an unprecedented rate in marked contrast to Jewish populations in other English‐speaking countries.Possible explanations include fear of political instability and political violence, deteriorating economic conditions and prospects, fear of directly discriminatory government policies, rising violent crime rates, and more permissive immigration policies in desirable destination countries.All but the last of these factors appear to have played some role. However, only changes in violent crime rates provide an explanation for the unprecedented surge in net emigration, persisting even after a successful political and economic transition to majority black rule under moderate African National Congress governments.Changes in crime rates also provide the most satisfactory explanation for related changes in internal migration patterns.

The Effects of Quality of Life on National Elections: A Multi-Country Analysis

This paper studies the effects of several Quality ofLife (QOL) indicators on the outcomes of nationalelections. We test the hypothesis that declines innational QOL will have a negative effect on the votingsupport for the governing party in the next election. For each election since 1960 in thirteen countries, weuse objective measures of QOL for the previous year toestimate the voting function by using astate-of-the-art technique called Sliced InverseRegression (Li, 1991). These objective measuresinclude GDP per capita, food availability, inflation,crime rates, divorce rate, and percent of females inthe labor force, among others. The estimated “votingfunction” is the best predictor of voters' behavior asa function of the changes in QOL. The results show that changes in economic variablesand food availability significantly affect electionoutcomes. In addition, changes in crime rates werefound to be nearly as important as economic variablesin influencing the election outcomes. This marks thefirst time that a non-economic indicator has beenshown to affect elections. In contrast, measures ofsatisfaction with family life, such as divorce, infantmortality, and percent females in the workforce, showno effect on voting behavior, probably because votersdo not hold their governments responsible for familyaffairs.

Evaluation of a UK Police Domestic Violence Unit Using Repeat Victimisation as a Performance Indicator

Since overall changes in crime rates are largely independent of the work of the police, the level of crime per se is not a measure of police performance. Where policing is a response to victimisation, a more appropriate measure would be the level of repeat victimisation. The empirical study is an evaluation of the first year of a police divisional Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) which operated in response to calls to ‘domestic’incidents. In the first year of operation of the DVU, repeat calls to domestic incidents declined in the division, while those in the six other divisions increased. However, this pattern did not hold when ‘all calls’were the measure, so that a potentially beneficial effect would have been missed. The substantive implications for the policing of domestic violence and the use of repeat victimisation as a measure for the evaluation of police crime prevention work are considered.

Understanding Prison Policy and Population Trends

American incarceration numbers increased fivefold between 1973 and 1997. Changes in penal policies and practices, not changes in crime rates, are the primary explanation, but there is disagreement about the causes of penal policy changes. Two prevalent explanations are that rising crime rates led to public demand for harsher policies and that politicians used crime policy to exacerbate public fears and win electoral favor. Both have merit but either is too simple. More likely the causes are some combination of crime policy's broad public appeal in an era of fractionated politics, unintended consequences of the war on drugs, and the increased reflexivity of the justice system that, with improved accountability and efficiency, becomes a major source of demand for its penal services.

Socioeconomic Correlates of Increasing Crime Rates in Smaller Communities

This research analyzes changes in crime rates by city size and determines the extent to which these changes can be explained by socioeconomic variables. More particularly it addresses rates of change in mean crime rates for violent and property crime between 1976–1984 and 1985–1994 for all U. S. cities, then compares results to Ohio cities. It provides a detailed analysis of changing crime rates in 111 Ohio cities with populations between 10,000 and 99,999 inhabitants and attempts to account for crime differentials between these cities employing linear regression and factor analysis. Results indicate that crime is significantly related to poverty and its associated conditions and processes.

Changes in crime rates and family-related values in selected East European countries.

Observations and longitudinal comparisons of emerging trends within formerly socialist East European countries offer a unique opportunity to observe some of the social policies typical of the capitalist and socialist systems and their influence on society. Some of the emerging trends in the Czech Republic, former East Germany, and Russia pertaining to general areas of public health, family, and crime are described. Effects of these changes are discussed within the framework of a recently proposed multiple regression model of criminal behavior in which criminality is attributed to the confluence of gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth and to the disintegration of the traditional family. The changes should be considered in the conduct of research.

Change in regime, social change and incarceration rates in Hungary

This research examines incarceration data from the Hungarian Ministry of Justice for the years 1988 to 1992. This time period allows an analysis of incarceration rates before, during, and after the change in political regimes in the Spring of 1990. The data indicate a substantial overall decrease in incarceration rates independent of changes in crime rates. Several explanations for this trend are suggested.

Prison population growth and crime reduction

The impact of state prison populations on crime is typically estimated by applying the lambda, the individual crime rate, of prisoners or arrestees. We outline the problems with this approach, attempt to reanalyze the widely divergent lambdas derived in past research, and make adjustments necessary to use lambdas for estimating the incapacitation impact. The result is an uncertain estimate of 16 to 25 index crimes averted per year per each additional prisoner. We argue that regression analysis can provide a better estimate of the impact of prison population growth. Applying the Granger test to pooled state data over 19 years, we found that prison population growth leads to lower crime rates but that crime rate changes have little or no short-term impact on prison population growth. Next we regressed crime rates on prison population and conclude that, on average, at least 17 index crimes are averted per additional prisoner. The impact is limited mainly to property crime.

The Influence of Economic Factors and Social Control Policy on Crime Rate Changes in Canada, 1962-1988

The Influence of Economic Factors and Social Control Policy on Crime Rate Changes in Canada, 1962-1988

Social Change and Crime Rates: An Evaluation of Alternative Theoretical Approaches

Two general theoretical perspectives, criminal opportunity and social disorganization, have been widely used to explain the level of crime in cities and temporal changes in their crime rates. Using a pooled cross-sectional and time-series design of 584 U.S. cities for the years 1960, 1970, and 1980, the present study evaluates the empirical adequacy of these theories. The cross-sectional findings were far more supportive of social disorganization theories than criminal opportunity theories. However, neither perspective was able to consistently explain changes in crime rates over time. Ethnic heterogeneity, household size, and the rate of crowding in households were the strongest predictors of the level and changes in official rates of homicide, robbery, and burglary. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research. Explanations for rising crime rates in the U.S. have taken various forms. Traditional theories of criminality (e.g., anomie, differential association, conflict, social bonding) identify the level of social integration, cultural conflict, economic inequality, and breakdown in social control as major correlates of crime. During the last decade, several opportunity-based theories (routine activities, lifestyle/exposure and rational choice models) have emerged as rival explanations for changing crime rates. Essentially, these criminal opportunity theories

Characteristics of U.S. cities with extreme (high or low) crime rates: Results of discriminant analyses of 1960, 1970, and 1980 data

Why do some cities have higher or lower crime rates than others? In this study we attempt to answer this fundamental question by identifying the theoretically motivated structural covariates which differentiate U.S. cities with extreme high and low crime rates. We apply discriminant function analysis across comprehensive samples of all U.S. cities with populations of greater than 25 000 in the periods 1960, 1970, and 1980 and then posit four question: are empirical findings from regression-based studies of city crime rates replicated in discriminant studies with extreme rates? Are the covariates that predict high or low crime rates unique to specific time periods? Which covariates are better able to discriminate high or low rates for specific crimes? And are specific covariates distinguishable in crime rate changes across time periods? Among our general findings, it appears that those cities with extreme high (low) crime rates tend to be the largest (smallest), most (least) economically deprived, and most (least) socially disintegrated. Associations with these latter two characteristics appear to have grown stronger over the past three census periods. The theoretical importance of these and other findings uncovered here are discussed and interpreted through Wilson's (1987) notion of concentration effects and social isolation which may have transformed inner-city areas in recent years.

Lifestyle changes and risks of criminal victimization

Routine activity/lifestyle theories have been used to explain temporal changes in crime rates, the social ecology of crime, and individuals' risks of criminal victimization. Using a panel of 33,773 individuals and 19,005 households at two points in time, the current study extends previous research by examining whether changes in lifestyles are associated with changes in individuals' risks of personal and property victimization. Changes in lifestyles which signal greater target visibility or exposure to motivated offenders (greater daytime and nighttime activity outside the home) and reduced guardianship (decreases in the number of household members) are generally associated with increased risks of both types of victimization. Persons who maintained high levels of nighttime activity outside the household were also more likely to remain victims at both time periods. However, “active” lifestyle changes (increased precautionary actions) did not have their expected impact on reducing victimization risks, and several other changes over time also were inconsistent with expectations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role of “passive” and “active” lifestyle changes on victimization risks and the implications of our findings for developing sociological theories of criminal victimization.

Urban Stratification of Places, Routine Activities and Suburban Crime Rates

Cohen and Felson's (1979) theory of is evaluated using 1972 and 1980 crime rate data for 676 American suburbs. Cross-sectional and change influences of criminal motivation (percent poor, percent unemployed, percent black, and percent youth), criminal opportunities (employment concentration and percent multiple housing) and guardianship (police employment, police expenditure, and female labor force nonparticipation) on suburban crime rates, 1980 and change in crime rates, 1972-80 are estimated using maximum likelihood (LISREL) techniques. Consistent with the routine activities model, a multiplicative effect of the preconditions for crime on crime rates is also estimated. Motivation, opportunities, and guardianship are found to have direct andlor indirect additive effects on violent andlor property crime rates-supporting the model. A multiplicative effect of the preconditions of crime is found for property crime but not for violent crime rates. Suburbs have historically been immune from many of the urban problems that plague central cities. However, urban problems have begun to invade the suburbs-traffic congestion and air pollution; rising crime and delinquency rates; deteriorating housing; poverty and unemployment (Gold 1982). Of particular interest has been the recent rapid increase in suburban crime rates. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data indicate that suburban violent crime rates increased by 130.7 percent from 1970 to 1980 compared to a 47.4 percent increase for central cities. The UCR shows increases for property crime rates of 146.0 percent for suburbs and 93.5 percent for central cities. Empirical questions arising are what types of suburbs have begun to experience increases in crime rates? And why? To answer these questions, a model of suburban property and violent crime rates is expli*We thank the anonymous referees, and especially David F. Greenberg, for their helpful comments and criticisms on earlier versions of this paper. Address correspondence to John M. Stahura, Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. ?D 1988 The University of North Carolina Press

Macroeconomic and Social-Control Policy Influences on Crime Rate Changes, 1948-1985

Informed by the insights of political economy, this study investigates the often-presumed though empirically elusive relationship between societal economic distress and crime. In a social-indicators model, we argue for including both unemployment and inflation rates as measures of the overall health of the economy. We contend that in the face of these destabilizing economic conditions, government engages in dualistic social control policies. On one hand, it attempts to discourage antisocial behavior via placative forms of control and, on the other, it exercises its deterrent capacities. Using annual time-series data for the period 1948-1985, we employ dynamic modeling techniques to examine these influences on annual fluctuations in rates of homicide, robbery, and burglary. The results yield mixed support for the hypothesized relationships, with the posited model gaining potency as we move from explaining more violent to less violent offenses. Finally, these findings hold when we control for changes in two other theoretically important influences: criminal opportunity and the age structure of the population. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by the American Sociological Association) Socioeconomic Factors Crime Rates 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Violence Rates Homicide Rates Robbery Rates Burglary Rates Crime Causes Violence Causes Economic Inequality 07-02