Crime Drop Research Articles

How Universal is the Youth Crime Drop? Disentangling Recent Trends in Youth Offending through a Socio-Economic Lens

ABSTRACT Recent research has consistently found declines in youth offending, and it has been suggested that youth offending may have become more concentrated in lower socio-economic communities. However, there has been limited empirical examination of this proposition. This study aimed to examine changes in the relative concentration of youth offending in low and high socio-economic communities in an Australian jurisdiction, from 2008 to 2018, and to explore socio-economic drivers of different types of youth offending over this period. Changes in offending concentration were measured using ratios of youth offending rates in low and high socio-economic communities over time and Poisson panel regression was used to explore socio-economic drivers of youth offending rates. Findings indicated disparate patterns across youth offending types, with significant decreases in one-off and low to moderate offending, and significant increases in chronic offending over the same period. Overall, youth offending was not found to have become increasingly concentrated in lower socio-economic communities, primarily due to larger relative increases in chronic offending in higher socio-economic communities. Despite a slight decrease in concentration, lower socio-economic communities continue to experience markedly higher youth offending rates. Findings indicate a need to better understand drivers of recent increases in chronic youth offending.

Analysis of 48 Hours of Television News Coverage Following the Columbine High School Shooting

On April 20, 1999, two Columbine High School students started a shooting rampage, ultimately killing 12 students and one teacher, wounding 21 victims, then completing suicide. Using media frame analysis (MFA), we examined 265 transcribed major network television news stories aired during the 48 hours following the shooting. In these stories, we investigated the frequency of warning signs of youth violence. Though later disputed, stories included warning signs that fortified the myth of the juvenile superpredator. Television news coverage of school shootings often spotlights perpetrators, fuels false narratives, creates an inflated sense of risk and vulnerability, and fails to place such events in the larger context of youth violence. We urge professionals to contextualize news stories within a broader framework of youth violence; to support fact-based communication between the media, school administrators, and law enforcement; to eliminate the spotlight on perpetrators; and to carefully consider reactionary responses that are not evidence-based nor proven effective.

Evaluation of The Cyber Religious Education Media with PIECES Framework

Community users of digital technologies in the Internet and various facilities such as social media, internet, games and various other applications provide a variety of positive and negative effects. efficiency, safety, comfort and effectiveness are positives of this technology but there are also negative impacts such as the decline of social behavior, crime and moral vulnerability. Although there have been internet ethical guidelines such as Cyber Ethics but have not been able to play a maximum role to be able to control the negative impact. Cyber religious is a model of internet user control of amoral and criminal acts, which can be applied to various elements related to the internet world. One of the applications of cyber religious for user control internet with applications that can detect immoral behavior or crime on the internet through detection on the browser used. It's so easy for someone to access internet information resulting in Uncontrolled Internet users. This can lead to problems such as dangerous access to cysts, pornography, crime, cruelty, abnormal behavior and committing criminal acts to others. Cyber religius proccesing is check the internet access of a person, if found any indication of immorality or crime then the system will provide warning and or provide other information more useful. This research provides various models of cyber religus achitecture with adoptation from some research about connection control with internet network. Each model influences different communities access from small office (LAN), large office (MAN), Access from any country and access to the world.

Activities, Access Control, and Crime: a Quasi-Experimental Study regarding Entry Gates at Train Stations in the Netherlands

This article discusses a unique “natural experiment,” the introduction of entry gates at Dutch train stations and the potential effects of this on crime in the areas around these stations. A quasi-experimental study was carried out to show that introducing entry gates correlated with a drop in crime in these areas. After entry gates had been introduced, potential offenders could only enter train stations with a valid ticket, which meant that they would be less likely to enter or leave these stations and more likely to choose other places to hang around in or for entering and leaving trains. A dataset was created in which the crime rates around train stations were registered for each month in the years 2013 through 2018. The changing numbers of travelers at each station were also taken into account, as this variable probably correlates with the amount of crime. A two-way fixed-effects model was run on data for about 260 train stations, with and without entry gates, using the relative crime rate per thousand travelers as the dependent variable. Based on this relative crime rate, the use of entry gates was found to coincide with a decrease of 9% in crime, compared to a situation without entry gates. This study can inform policymakers about the potential effects of entry gates in particular and about situational crime prevention in general. Moreover, it illustrates how implementing measures at various locations at different moments enables the effectiveness of such measures to be tested more precisely and with more confidence.

Let’s go throwing stones and stealing cars: offender adaptability and the security hypothesis

The security hypothesis posits that the international crime drop can be attributed to, in large part, improvements in security technology. However, in recent years, certain types of property crime are increasing. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that offenders are adapting to increased security in vehicles through burglarizing residences to steal keys. We analyze residential burglaries, thefts of vehicles, and their co-occurrences in Brisbane Australia (2009–2018) to identify changes in their temporal patterns. Residential burglaries declined while thefts of vehicle remained relatively constant. Co-occurrences of residential burglaries and thefts of vehicle doubled while the rate almost tripled. Data signatures indicate a shift in modus operandi showing significant increases in the use of residential burglaries to facilitate thefts of vehicle.

The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime over the Last Two Decades

AbstractDonohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong out-of-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: “When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1% a year in crime over the next two decades.” Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction and the broad hypothesis, while illuminating some previously unrecognized patterns of crime and arrests. We estimate that overall crime fell 17.5% from 1998 to 2014 due to legalized abortion—a decline of 1% per year. From 1991 to 2014, the violent and property crime rates each fell by 50%. Legalized abortion is estimated to have reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over this period, and thus can explain most of the observed crime decline.

Development and Crime Drop: A Time-Series Analysis of Crime Rates in Hong Kong in the Last Three Decades.

Although the recent crime drop in Western societies has rejuvenated crime trend studies, little is known about the crime trends and the corresponding explanations in the East. This study aims to fill the gaps by examining different types of offenses in Hong Kong between 1976 and 2017. Specifically, this study tests and evaluates major macro-level theoretical approaches explaining crime trends, including institutional anomie theory, routine activities theory, and deterrence theory. Using Error Correction Models, our analyses reveal that the strengths of different social institutions are negatively associated with crime rates, showing strong support to institutional anomie theory. The results also partially support routine activities theory by demonstrating that levels of economic development are negatively associated with both violent and property crime rates, and the number of mobile cellular subscriptions is negatively related to homicide rates. Deterrence explanations are mainly supported for property crime. These findings provide theoretical insights on the etiology of crime and also yield important policy suggestions on how to sustain the observed decline in crime rates in modern societies.

Crimes in the Time of COVID-19

Due to the current pandemic, governments all over the world have given stay at home orders and have advised people to follow precautions like social distancing. These measures have a significant impact on our social, economic, and political setting which ultimately affects the volume and distribution of crimes worldwide. To understand the impact of social distancing policies on crime, we have compared the crime statistics during the pandemic (2020) with that of the previous year (2019) for the two metropolitan cities New Delhi, India, and New York, USA. We observe the trends of different types of crime and conclude that while crimes like residential burglaries have reduced, crimes like domestic violence have increased significantly. A rise in commercial burglaries1 was observed in New York whereas in New Delhi a decline was observed because of the presence of the police on roads. Furthermore, A decline in crimes like robbery, burglary, larceny, etc. was observed whereas a sharp increase was seen in the cases of domestic violence in both the cities.

A spatial analytical approach to assess the impact of a casino on crime: An example of JACK Casino in downtown Cincinnati

This study examines the macro and micro impacts of a casino on multiple crime types over time. JACK Casino, opened on March 4, 2013, is near the Central Business District of Cincinnati, Ohio. We use the weighted displacement quotient and a series of negative binomial models for the years from 2010 to 2016 to compare before-and-after crime patterns within the neighboring area of the casino (within 400-meter) compared to the entire city. Results show that the casino has differing effects on property and violent crime in regard to crime density and spatial patterns. Within the casino's neighboring area, property crime density decreased in the year of construction (2012) and the year of opening (2013), but increased in the following years (2014–2016). At the same time, the city experienced an overall decline in property crime. Also, property crime incidents started to cluster around the casino after its opening. We confirmed this distance decay by statistical analyses at both macro (citywide) and micro (neighboring area) scales. In contrast, the casino did not show such an obvious impact on violent crime. The initial increase of violent crime density just after the casino opened was followed by a drop to the pre-casino level. Meanwhile, although violent crime patterns around the casino were slightly altered because of the casino, the change was not statistically significant. The difference between property and violent crime in response to the casino's opening is an important contribution to the literature. Our findings also demonstrate that it is vital to examine the micro-spatial and temporal impact of casinos, rather than rely on the cross-sectional examination of jurisdiction-wide crime levels. Further, this approach should be generally applicable to other regions.

Effect of sentencing reform on racial and ethnic disparities in involvement with the criminal justice system: The case of California's proposition 47

AbstractWe analyze the disparate effects of a recent California sentencing reform on the arrest, booking, and incarceration rates experienced by California residents from different racial and ethnic groups. In November 2014, California voters passed state Proposition 47 that redefined a series of felony and “wobbler” offenses (offenses that can be charged as either a felony or misdemeanor) as straight misdemeanors, causing an immediate 15% decline in total drug arrests, an approximate 20% decline in total property crime arrests, and shifts in the composition of arrests away from felonies towards misdemeanors. Using microdata on the universe of arrests in the state in conjunction with demographic data from the American Community Survey, we document a substantial narrowing in interracial differences in overall arrest rates and arrest rates by offense type, with very large declines in the interracial arrest rate gaps for felony drug offenses. We see declines in bookings rates for all groups (conditional on being arrested), though we find a larger decrease for white arrestees. This relatively greater decline for white arrests is largely explained by differences in the distribution of arrests across recorded offenses. Despite the widening of racial gaps in the conditional booking rate, we observe substantial declines in overall booked arrests that are larger for African Americans and Hispanics relative to Whites and Asians. For some offenses (felony drug offenses), interracial disparities in jail booking rates narrow by nearly half. Finally, we use data from the American Community Survey to analyze changes in the proportion incarcerated on any given day and how these changes vary by race and ethnicity. For these results, we present trends for the time period spanning the larger set of policy reforms that have been implemented in the state since 2011. We observe sizable declines in the overall incarceration rate for African Americans, with the largest declines observed for African American males. The one quarter decline in total correctional populations in the state coincided with sizable narrowing in interracial differences in incarceration rates.

Druglords don’t stay at home: COVID-19 pandemic and crime patterns in Mexico City

ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on conventional crime and organized crime in Mexico City, Mexico. MethodsMexico City's Attorney General's Office reported crime data, covering domestic violence, burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, assault-battery, homicides, kidnapping, and extortion. We use an event study for the intertemporal variation across the 16 districts (municipalities) in Mexico City for 2019 and 2020. ResultsWe find a sharp decrease on crimes related to domestic violence, burglary, and vehicle theft; a decrease during some weeks on crimes related to assault-battery and extortion, and no effects on crimes related to robbery, kidnapping, and homicides. ConclusionsWhile our results show a decline in conventional crime during the COVID- 19 pandemic, organized crime remains steady. These findings have policy implications for catastrophic events around the world, as well as possible national security issues in Mexico.

COVID and Crime: An Early Empirical Look

Data from 25 large U.S. cities is assembled to estimate the impact of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime. There is a widespread immediate drop in both criminal incidents and arrests most heavily pronounced among drug crimes, theft, residential burglaries, and most violent crimes. The decline appears to precede stay-at-home orders, and arrests follow a similar pattern as reports. There is no decline in homicides and shootings, and an increase in non-residential burglary and car theft in most cities, suggesting that criminal activity was displaced to locations with fewer people. Pittsburgh, New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Chicago each saw overall crime drops of at least 35%. Evidence from police-initiated reports and geographic variation in crime change suggests that most of the observed changes are not due to changes in crime reporting.

The U.S. Racial Structure and Ethno-Racial Inequality in Urban Neighborhood Crime, 2010–2013

Stark ethno-racial differences in reported neighborhood crime are a major facet of contemporary U.S. inequality. However, the most generalizable research on neighborhood inequality in crime across cities is only for 2000. Many of the underpinnings of crime have changed since 2000—increases in socioeconomic segregation, the Great Recession and attendant housing crisis, the continuation of the crime decline, shifting trends in incarceration and other types of social control, and small decreases in racial residential segregation. We provide a much-needed assessment of whether ethno-racial reported neighborhood crime disparities have increased, remained stable, or decreased in the contemporary period. We invoke a racial structural perspective that traces ethno-racial disparities in neighborhood crime to the divergent community conditions emblematic of the U.S. racial hierarchy. Using newly collected data for 8,557 neighborhoods in 71 large U.S. cities for 2010–2013, we demonstrate that violent and property crime is lower in White, African American, Latino, minority, and multiethnic neighborhoods than in 2000. However, smaller relative decreases in African American neighborhoods widened the relative crime gap from other ethno-racial communities. Supporting the racial structural perspective, large ethno-racial inequalities in neighborhood well-being account for most of the crime gaps, with disadvantage and residential lending being most important. This suggests that non-White neighborhoods need economic investments to reduce the harmful and inequitable consequences of neighborhood crime.

The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime Over the Last Two Decades

Donohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong out-of-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: “When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1 percent a year in crime over the next two decades.” Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction. The estimated coefficient on legalized abortion is actually larger in the latter period than it was in the initial dataset in almost all specifications. We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Has COVID-19 Changed Crime? Crime Rates in the United States during the Pandemic.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state-level governments across the United States issued mandatory stay-at-home orders around the end of March 2020. Though intended to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the lockdowns have had sweeping impacts on life in ways which were not originally planned. This study’s purpose is to investigate the extent to which governmental responses to COVID-19 have impacted crime rates in the U.S. Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, crime – as measured by calls for service to law enforcement – has decreased markedly. However, there are multiple indications that the crime drop is being driven by decreases in minor offenses which are typically committed in peer groups. At the same time, serious crimes which are generally not committed with co-offenders (namely homicide and intimate partner violence) have either remained constant or increased. As such, the crime drop appears to be hiding a very disturbing trend where homicides remain unchanged and intimate partner batteries are increasing. Since many offenders would presumably be committing less serious crimes in a non-pandemic world, we raise attention to the possibility that mandatory lockdown orders may have taken minor offenders and placed them into situations where there is rampant opportunity for intimate partner violence, serious batteries, and homicides. While crime in the U.S. appears to be down overall, this good news should not blind us to a troubling co-occurring reality – a reality that paints a dim picture of unintended consequences to public health and criminal justice finances as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Violence and the crime drop

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, violence fell dramatically between 1995 and 2013/14. To improve understanding of the fall in violent crime, this study examines long-term crime trends in England and Wales over the past two decades, by scrutinizing the trends in (a) stranger and acquaintance violence, (b) severity of violence, (c) age groups, and (d) sexes. It draws on nationally representative, weighted data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and examines prevalence, incidence and crime concentration trends. The overall violence fall was driven by a decline in the victimization of young individuals and/or males perpetrated by acquaintances since 1995. Stranger and acquaintance violence followed different trajectories, with the former beginning to drop post 2003/4. Falls in both stranger and acquaintance violence incidence rates were led by a reduction in victims over time. Counting all incidents reported by the same victim (instead of capping at five incidents) significantly affects trends in stranger violence but not in acquaintance violence. In relation to the distributive justice within the crime drop, this study provides unique evidence of equitable falls in acquaintance violence but inequitable falls in stranger violence. These findings highlight the need to examine violence types separately and point to a number of areas for future research.

Monitoring wizyjny i jego wpływ na straty spowodowane przestępczością. Przykłady z wybranych polskich miast

W Polsce, podobnie jak w innych krajach, brakuje jednoznacznego i uzgodnionego wyjaśnienia przyczyn obniżenia poziomu przestępczości odnotowanego w ostatnich kilkunastu latach. W artykule analizowany jest wpływ systemów monitoringu wizyjnego na straty powodowane przez trzy kategorie przestępstw: (a) kradzież samochodu, kradzież z włamaniem do samochodu, kradzież z samochodu; (b) uszkodzenie samochodu; (c) rozbój. Aby odpowiedzieć na pytanie, czy instalowanie systemów monitoringu wizyjnego ma wpływ na bezpieczeństwo, badane są ekonomiczne skutki instalowania kamer w ośmiu polskich miastach, w których systemy monitoringu wizyjnego są dobrze rozwinięte (Gdańsk, Katowice, Kielce, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Warszawa, Wrocław). Określenie wpływu instalacji kamer na zmniejszenie strat spowodowanych przestępczością pozwala ocenić przydatność kamer dla poprawy bezpieczeństwa publicznego.Analiza danych przeprowadzona na potrzeby artykułu częściowo potwierdza skuteczność monitoringu miejskiego w zakresie zmniejszania liczby przestępstw w badanych kategoriach. Warto zaznaczyć, że również inne czynniki mogą mieć na to wpływ. Monitoring miejski ma natomiast mniejsze oddziaływanie na straty spowodowane przestępczością. W związku z tym przy ocenie skuteczności monitoringu wizyjnego w obniżaniu poziomu przestępczości poleganie wyłącznie na kryterium liczby przestępstw jest niewystarczające.

Patrick Sharkey. Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence

Patrick Sharkey. <i>Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence</i>

The COVID-19 and the Decline in Crime

Reported crimes have declined in some major cities after the imposition of restrictions on businesses and residents to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The Balkin-McDonald (1981) model of street crime is used to explain the outcomes. Recent crime rate data from five major cities are provided.

THE DISASTER OF SUCCESS: LESSONS IN FAILED LEADERSHIP FROM THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

AbstractThis article asserts that while crime has dropped, arrests and convictions have accelerated. While America is relatively safe compared to other nations, the criminal justice system is broken. This is acknowledged by such disparate groups as Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, the left‐leaning American Civil Liberties Union, and the Tea Party oriented Freedom Works. In the 1960s, the American system of justice, albeit nested within a society still struggling for equality, was widely seen as a model for the rest of the world. However, the subsequent war on crime reflects a complete failure in many of the basic elements of leadership critical to any campaign. Six different areas are explored: the plan, guiding principles, implementation, execution, measurement, and cost. Various studies are cited, such as this finding by the Pew Center: States that have reduced prison populations the most have seen a larger drop in crime than have those states that have increased prison populations the most. The article concludes noting that encouraging signs are emerging, some 52 cities and counties, in 32 states, under the guidance of the MacArthur Foundation, are convening local leaders to identify more fair, just, and effective ways to preserve public safety.