There is a great myth held by criminal justice scholars supported by reported criminal justice statistics that crime went down during the Great Depression. The data clearly show that the crime wave of the Great Depression peaked in 1933, and went down thereafter in 1934 and the succeeding years until the end of the Depression.
So you have to ask yourself this question – did crime truly go down during the Great Depression, or was something else going on? Why was there such a sharp drop in crime in 1934 and thereafter? What was going on?
In a new book to be released in April 2009, Economic Misery and Crime Waves: the future history of the second great depression and the crime wave that followed, and what to do about it, this author suggests that reported crime during the Great Depression indeed went down from 1934 onwards, but not because there was necessarily less crime, but rather that the nature of crime statistics collection, reporting, and laws changed; furthermore, the emphasis was switched to going after the serious habitual offender (or SHOs), de-emphasis on minor crimes not arresting for minor property destruction, rail car break-ins, trespass, food thefts; and not unimportanly, a the creation of a huge crime demand reduction programs impacting those at greatest risk for crime opportunity -- young, unemployed males from the inner cities. These facts are largely ignored by criminal justice academicians that take the reported data at face value.
From an empirical standpoint, the dramatic reduction in crime figures post-1934 during the later half of the Great Depression can be explained by any one or combination of the following measures that have nothing to do with the real level of crime:
In a new book to be released in April 2009, Economic Misery and Crime Waves: the future history of the second great depression and the crime wave that followed, and what to do about it, this author suggests that reported crime during the Great Depression indeed went down from 1934 onwards, but not because there was necessarily less crime, but rather that the nature of crime statistics collection, reporting, and laws changed; furthermore, the emphasis was switched to going after the serious habitual offender (or SHOs), de-emphasis on minor crimes not arresting for minor property destruction, rail car break-ins, trespass, food thefts; and not unimportanly, a the creation of a huge crime demand reduction programs impacting those at greatest risk for crime opportunity -- young, unemployed males from the inner cities. These facts are largely ignored by criminal justice academicians that take the reported data at face value.
From an empirical standpoint, the dramatic reduction in crime figures post-1934 during the later half of the Great Depression can be explained by any one or combination of the following measures that have nothing to do with the real level of crime: (1) decriminalizing crimes that were formerly illegal, as in repealing Prohibition and the attendant crimes that accompanied bootlegging and rum-running operations would have the natural effect of reducing the number of reported crimes, without changing the behavior of organized crime or cause them to turn from their vice practices; with the change in Prohibition, the authorities released some prohibition-law offenders from prison, reducing the financial cost of crime control.
(2) re-focusing law enforcement efforts tightly on the objective of incapacitating the most serious habitual offenders such as desperados, and de-emphasizing and underreporting crimes of opportunity would cause a reduction in reported crimes; merely by stop counting petty crimes and civil disobedience, such as breaking into railroad box cars, stealing food etc, would by the nature of law enforcement focus and attention, reduce the level of reported crime without impacting the underlying conditions with the exception that an incapacitated habitual offender would be one-less habitual offender;
(3) President Roosevelt implemented within three-weeks of taking office a massive crime opportunity reduction program that de facto served to extract 25% of the likely offender population of unemployed, at risk males from the high-density city centers, and relocated them to rural military managed work camps called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). On March 23, 1933, Roosevelt created the CCC that at its peak (in 1935) extracted 500,000 unemployed young men at risk for crime involvement living in the inner cities and took them to the isolated rural areas of our national forests and parks to live and work in camps effectively getting them out of the cities reducing the likely number of offenders where the crime data were reported. Over 2.2 million young men worked in the CCC during the Great Depression reflecting incapacitation of between 25%-33% of our nation’s poor men. the locations of the encampments were so rural and transportation inadequate, that few workers ventured away from the camps on weekends, nor were they within close enough proximity to reach the cities where they had been extracted from. Whether by court ordered placement in the CCC as a diversionary program, or by volunteer sign-up, the reduction in the number of likely offender at risk young male population would serve to reduce crime in specific places.
This author agrees that as the conditions of economic misery were improved, and misery lessened, that crime did decrease, but proximate cause of the decease in reported crime was the de jure government intervention to reclassify crime (making former crimes legal), narrow the focus of crime control, and remove a large cohort of at risk likely offenders from the densely populated inner cities.
This author agrees that as the conditions of economic misery were improved, and misery lessened, that crime did decrease, but proximate cause of the decease in reported crime was the de jure government intervention to reclassify crime (making former crimes legal), narrow the focus of crime control, and remove a large cohort of at risk likely offenders from the densely populated inner cities.
So one must ask therefore, What was it that was happening so significantly in the country between 1929 and 1933 that caused President Franklin Roosevelt to start the CCC within three weeks of his inauguration? An economic misery based crime wave that is largely ignored by criminologists and criminal justice scholars today who site only the statistics of cities that crime went down following the implementation of the above measures through the end of the great depression; this author is therefore not surprised that the great cohort of nearly 25% of the cohort of young male unemployed likely criminal offenders were extracted from our city streets and sent to the rural areas and reported crime in the cities decreased.
Think that such bold action in criminal justice thinking might happen again? The rumblings of similar policy approaches are being paraded today. There is a growing cry for decriminalizing laws (such as marijuana illegality and taxing it as a controlled substance), reducing the severity of sentencing (as is being done presently by several states (read article), and preparing a huge jobs program to remove the large at risk likely offender population from the inner cities should be in the offing.
Think that such bold action in criminal justice thinking might happen again? The rumblings of similar policy approaches are being paraded today. There is a growing cry for decriminalizing laws (such as marijuana illegality and taxing it as a controlled substance), reducing the severity of sentencing (as is being done presently by several states (read article), and preparing a huge jobs program to remove the large at risk likely offender population from the inner cities should be in the offing.
The great challenge however with this last program was that the CCC relocated workers to the rural state and national parks throughout the US where they were too far removed to return to the cities on weekends, thereby ensuring reduced crime in the cities. To do the same thing today and have similar impact -- President Obama would need to implement a new International Peace Corps or Environmental Corps initiative, sending young unemployed people from the 'at risk population' for being likely offenders, and send them to 3rd world countries where they would learn new careers in applied developmental economics, building wells, clean water, farms, and micro finance, in underdeveloped nations. Otherwise, the mobility of the generation may merely displace crime in one inner city location to another location nearest the work programs.
It is important to remember, the past is the past, but the history is what is written. Does calling a cat a dog, transform the cat into a dog? Or did someone just lower the bar of expectation and declare victory? You decide. We will have our own opportunity to live through these same experiences in our own modern experiment living through this deep recession, that when the history books are written, will call it the second great depression.
It is time now for government leaders to move beyond the economic necessity of capital preservation and credit availability; it is time to think about the consequences of the sharp economic crises and prepare our people for this change. Whether performed silently behind closed doors and away from the cameras, or publicly addressing the issues, crime is increasing, the nation’s police chiefs see it, the public senses it and are purchasing firearms for their own protection at increasing rates. We are indeed moving into a paradigm change. We need to a crime control master plan to address our protracted condition.
The future is not so dark when you accept it, and move on to prepare for it. But not addressing the needs that are building is to worsen the human condition, not better it, and bettering the human condition should be the aim of this government at this time.
It is important to remember, the past is the past, but the history is what is written. Does calling a cat a dog, transform the cat into a dog? Or did someone just lower the bar of expectation and declare victory? You decide. We will have our own opportunity to live through these same experiences in our own modern experiment living through this deep recession, that when the history books are written, will call it the second great depression.
It is time now for government leaders to move beyond the economic necessity of capital preservation and credit availability; it is time to think about the consequences of the sharp economic crises and prepare our people for this change. Whether performed silently behind closed doors and away from the cameras, or publicly addressing the issues, crime is increasing, the nation’s police chiefs see it, the public senses it and are purchasing firearms for their own protection at increasing rates. We are indeed moving into a paradigm change. We need to a crime control master plan to address our protracted condition.
The future is not so dark when you accept it, and move on to prepare for it. But not addressing the needs that are building is to worsen the human condition, not better it, and bettering the human condition should be the aim of this government at this time.
