While this blog's author believes that a global crime wave is inevitable, and has published this blog to provide a voice of warning, caution, and preparedness, not everyone agrees with this scenario.
The FBI and selective police chiefs site lower crime rates since the recession began. Referenced in this article appearing in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, one scholar believes that perhaps one reason the crime wave has not hit is the impact of exogenous factors such as the stimulus plan that moved to lengthen the term of benefits for unemployed (meaning increased social insurance) and additional jobs replacing some of the lost jobs during this period. And there is some merit in this argument. The question remains however, can placing a thumb in the hole spring in the dike hold back the raging flood waters?
Read below an excerpt from the AJC:
Across the nation, crime, on the whole, is down considerably, especially property crimes and violent crimes such as robbery.
The counterintuitive nature of this recession makes sense when you peel back the layers.
Take home burglaries, for instance.
“We assume crime climbs when the economy is down,” said Rosenfeld, Curators Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. But “during high unemployment, more people are at home and that cuts the rates of burglary.”
Additionally, people tend to carry fewer valuables these days, so there are fewer street crimes such as robberies, Rosenfeld added.
The drug trade, which usually grows and flourishes in a recession, has been contained mostly within the groups of people who were already buying and selling drugs. In the past, disputes over drug deals often resulted in murders or other violent crimes. Now, they’re contained and rarely reported. After all, who’s going to go to the police about a drug deal gone bad?
“The absence of expansion in the drug market could be related to the absences of crime increasing,” Rosenfeld said.
Add last year’s stimulus money, which extended unemployment benefits and food stamps to millions and helped many communities keep more police on the street, and you get a clearer picture.
“That may have cushioned the low-income against the full effects of the economic downturn,” Rosenfeld said.
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For my part, I am quite confidant that in the annals of history that this extraordinary period of economic calamity will indeed foster conditions that will incubate a crime wave born of economic misery from long-term sustained unemployment, loss of income, loss of purchasing power (through devalued real estate) and a portent of inflation on the horizon.
