Total Crime Rates Research Articles

Crime and the Restructuring of the U.S. Economy: A Reconsideration of the Class Linkages

Researchers have speculated that dislocations in the class structure produced by recent economic restructuring are responsible for a variety of social problems, including crime. However, attempts to demonstrate a causal link between restructuring and crime have been only partially successful. We attribute the lack of progress in this area to the narrow focus on the impact of unemployment, the neglect of meso-level class structures, and thefailure to conceptualize and empirically model the temporal and spatial dimensions of restructuring. This article extends contributions from the historical perspective on social structures of accumulation and collective-action frame theory to provide a more complete understanding of the class linkages between economic restructuring and crime. Hypotheses derived from these two models are tested with a pooled, crosssectional, time-series analysis of the state-level determinants of violent-crime, property-crime, and total crime rates. Results indicate that when properly examined across time and space, unemployment has its expected positive impact onf total crime rate and property-crime rate. Findings also suggest that net of the effects of unemployment and traditional predictors, class factors operating at the mesolevel (employer tactics and labor organization) influence property-crime and total crime rates byframing perceptions of class adversaries and agency. Since the early 1970s, American corporations have undertaken a massive restructuring of their operations in hopes of cutting labor costs and recapturing profits lost to growing foreign competition. The most obvious mani

Immigrants, Crime, and Criminal Justice in Sweden

Immigrants generally have higher crime rates than do indigenous Swedes, particularly for violence and theft, and are likelier to be victims of violence. Both first- and second-generation immigrants have higher crime rates than indigenous Swedes, but second-generation immigrants have lower rates than first-generation immigrants-a finding contradicting results in other countries. These lower rates may be a consequence of Swedish social welfare policy. The offending pattern of second-generation immigrants is similar to the pattern of native Swedes. Groups with a high total crime rate in the first generation tend to have a relatively high total crime rate in the second generation and vice versa.

High Rates of Violence, Crime, Academic Problems, and Behavioral Problems in Males With Both Early Neuromotor Deficits and Unstable Family Environments

It is commonly assumed that individuals with both biological and psychosocial deficits are more likely to become criminal, but there is surprisingly little empirical support for this assumption. We test the hypothesis that a group with biosocial risk factors are more likely to develop behavioral and academic problems in adolescence and violent criminal offending in adult-hood compared with groups with only biological or only social risk factors. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 397 male subjects, using obstetric and early neuromotor measures collected in the first year of life; family, social, demographic, and behavioral measures at age 17 to 19 years; and criminal data at 20 to 22 years of age. Cluster analysis of the risk factors indicated a group with obstetric risk factors only, a group with poverty risk factors only, and a biosocial group with both early neuromotor deficits and unstable family environments. The biosocial group had more than double the adult violence, theft, and total crime rates of the other 2 groups and had significantly more behavioral and academic problems in adolescence. When early neuromotor deficits and negative family factors cluster together, individuals are particularly likely to become criminal and violent compared with those with only poverty or only obstetric risk factors. Because this biosocial group accounted for 70.2% of all crimes committed in the entire sample, early interventions that tackle these deficits might significantly reduce violence.

The police, crime, and economic theory: A replication and extension

Based on insights garnered from rational choice theory, Loftin and McDowall hypothesize that there is likely to be a reciprocal relationship, over time, within jurisdictions between police force strength and crime. Contrary to expectations, their ARIMA analyses of the association between total police force employment and the total crime rate for Detriot during the period of 1926 to 1977 produce null findings. As a result, they conclude that rational choice models are too simplistic to explain the relationship between the agency size and crime. It is our contention that this conclusion might be premature. We suggest that a failure to disaggregate total police force employment into its component sectors may be masking substantial reciprocal effects. The present investigation employs ARIMA techniques to model the reciprocal relationship between total, patrol, and detective police employment and total, property, and personal, robbery crimes in Milwaukee for the years 1930 to 1987. Consistent with previous research we report null findings between total police employment and total crime rates. However, the findings also reveal significant reciprocal relationships between the disaggregated measures of police size and crime. The implications of these results for rational choice theory are discussed.

The Declining Gender Difference in Crime: The Taiwanese Case

Industrialized Taiwan is facing increasing crime rates. Despite concern from the government as well as the general public, crime has hardly been researched. Research regarding gender difference in crime is nonexistent in Taiwan. This article examines the extent and nature of gender difference in crime from 1979 to 1993 in Taiwan. Data are from official arrest records in Crime Statistics. Results of a longitudinal analysis reveal that both male and female total crime rates have increased. However, the male-to-female crime ratio has declined in total arrests, as well as in four types of crimes: violent, property, drug, and gambling. The sharpest decline in gender ratio has occurred in the category of drug offenses.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE USSR: NEW INFORMATION ON DISTRIBUTION

Analysis of newly available data and recent newspaper reports on the corrective labor system reveals important distributional and spatial aspects to the problem of crime and its punishment in the USSR. The article supplies data on the major categories of offenses, notes the general similarity of crime rates between rural and urban areas and the significant interregional variations in overall and specific crime rates. Evidence is presented which indicates that the total crime rate in Siberia and the Far East greatly exceeds the USSR average. This is attributable to distinctive features of the region's population structure, the instability of its labor force, unsatisfactory living conditions, and the (relatively) still large number of inmates brought to corrective labor camps in Siberia from all over the country.

Estimating Race-Specific Offending Rates: An Intercity Comparison of Arrest Data and Victim Reports

Abstract Despite their importance for the evaluation of criminological theories, little attention has been given to measuring race-specific rates of criminal offending for an appreciable number of macrosocial units. For a sample of 25 citics, this paper computes and compares race-specific offending rates for robbery and assault from two alternative data sources: victims’ reports of offender's race, as recorded in the National Crime Survey's Citics Sample, and official arrest data, as compiled by the FBI. In support of Sellin's argument that each step in the disposition of a crime introduces selective biases, the convergence between the total crime rates computed from these two sources is slightly weaker than that previously reported for the NCS crime rates and crime rates based on the UCR “offenses known to the police.” The observed correlations arc stronger for blacks than for whites, especially for the offense of robbery. Finally, two structural characteristics of citics, incomc inequality and populatio...

A Durkheimian Analysis of International Crime Rates

Emile Durkheim's theory of the emergence of the division of labor and consequent state of anomie was presented as a model by which the variance in international crime rates could be explained. Durkheim recognized the possibility that a 4chronic state of anomie occurring concomitant with industrialization would produce an increase in the crime rate. A test of the model delineating the causal relationships suggested by Durkheim found that the variable of anomie was not predictive of crime rates. However, a modified model excluding anomie was examined and found to be useful in explaining property and total crime rates. Alternative interpretations consistent with a Durkheimian perspective were suggested and explored. The works of Emile Durkheim have long formed the basis for many sociological theories. Perhaps nowhere else is Durkheim's influence more apparent than in the sociology of deviance. The social bonding perspective (Hirschi, and the several varieties of anomie theory; Cloward and Ohlin; Cohen; Merton, a, b), need only be mentioned to testify to the pervasive and lasting impact of Durkheim's ideas in this area. Recently, there has been an effort to employ Durkheim's ideas on social change more directly in explaining the variation in rates of deviance which may accompany industrialization (Gibbs and Martin, c; McDonald; Miley and Micklin; Webb). The current effort continues and extends this line of inquiry by employing a Durkheimian model to explain the variation in cross-national crime rates.

An Algorithm for Deploying a Crime Directed (Tactical) Patrol Force

This paper presents an algorithm for deploying a crime directed patrol force. The optimization problem is formulated as the allocation of N patrol among R high crime regions so as to maximize the weighted probability of a patrol intercept of a crime. The algorithm has full sensitivity analysis capabilities. This capability is critical because the model's input parameters include (1) crime weights, which in general will have a subjective component, (2) crime descriptive data, which are difficult to estimate, and (3) crime frequency data, which are likely to change with time. The paper presents an illustrative application of the algorithm. The resultant allocation is compared to a strategy which allocates patrol units in direct proportion to each region's total crime rate. The optimal allocation significantly increased the probability of an intercept.

On the Optimum Use of Incarceration for Crime Control

In recent years serious attention has been given to the potential of imprisonment to reduce crime by “general deterrence,” which discourages criminal behavior in the general population through the threat of punishment and by “incapacitation,” which involves physically separating criminals from the rest of society. Also of fundamental importance to the use of prison is evidence that suggests that the imprisonment rates (prisoners per capita) in the U.S. fluctuates only within very narrow limits. This apparent constraint suggests the need for an overall framework for reducing crime that best uses the limited resource, man-years of imprisonment. In this paper we develop a model that estimates total crime rate as a function of imprisonment policies, incorporating estimates of deterrent and incapacitative effects. Using imprisonment rate as a constraint, we develop an optimization framework to minimize crime rate and use it to explore implications of alternative incarceration policies. An illustrative example, using data from 1970, is provided.

A Reply to Stack

The problems inherent in doing cross-national analyses given the current quantity and quality of data are well illustrated by Stack's comments on my analysis (Krohn, 1976) of the relationship between unemployment and inequality and the crime rates for 38 nations. While Stack endorses the findings on the other variables included in my analysis, he calls into question the reported relationships between unemployment and the crime rates because the unemployment data are based on unsound measurements which threaten the comparability of such data. I readily concur with Stack's statement that these results be interpreted with caution and am grateful for his explication of the different measures of unemployment reported in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics (ILO, 1967). However, I cannot agree with his assertion that the findings on unemployment should be disregarded. Since Stack does not provide any data which indicate the use of the unemployment estimates provided by the Yearbook have systematically biased the correlation coefficients, I would suggest a strategy of tentatively accepting the results until analyses using better measures find significantly divergent findings which would warrant disregarding those results based on the less comparable measures. In the absence of such analyses there are two ways in which Stack's assertion can be investigated. First, we can examine the correlations between unemployment and rates of crime only for those nations which have the most comparable form of unemployment statistics, the labor force sample survey data. This reduces the sample to only 11 highly industrialized nations, thus introducing a significant bias into the coefficients. In spite of this bias, the correlations found between unemployment and homicide, property and total crime rates (.40, -.43, and -.41, respectively) are consistent in direction with those reported in my original 24 nation analysis (.26, -.21, and -.003). Obviously there is a significant discrepancy in the magnitude of the correlations. However, this may be due to the fact that including only nations reporting labor force sample survey data limits the variability in the sample to industrialized nations. Research reporting time series analyses on the relationship between unemployment and homicide within 16 separate nations indicates that heavily industrialized, capitalist societies exhibit a strong positive correlation whereas other nations have low or inverse correlations (Archer et al., 1976). Thus, the attrition of countries when including only those nations with labor force sample survey data may have served to increase the magnitude of the correlations.

Crimes and socio-economic environments

The purpose of this note is to study the relationship between crimes and the socio-economic environment in the metropolitan areas of the United States. In this study we define total crime rate per 100,000 population as a linear function of (i) per capita personal income, (ii) the unemployment rate (iii) the migration rate, (iv) racial imbalance, (v) climate, and (vi) males as a percentage of total population. Our statistical results confirm the hypothesis that social and economic conditions cause crime.