ABSTRACT
According to common wisdom, a deteriorating economy is certain to spur a rise in crime rates. The perspective on crime and economic difficulties has been inspired by Becker’s model (1968), which states that an individual would commit a crime if the benefits of committing the crime outweigh the costs of committing the crime. Applied to an aversive economic environment, this model suggests that income-generating crimes such as theft and burglaries will become more attractive because an increasing number of people are becoming unemployed. However, historical data on arrests and unemployment show that there is no clear relationship between crime and unemployment-a common measure of economic difficulties. According to the economist, Philip Cook, who recently examined the course of crime rates in urban areas of the United States in recent decades: “the statistical evidence indicates that the 1990s crime rate decline, like the crime surge that preceded it, has not been clearly correlated with changes in socioeconomic conditions.”
