Unemployment and property crime: a target-specific assessment of opportunity and motivation as mediating factors

Most recent unemployment-crime (U-C) research is informed by the possibility that unemployment could both increase motivation for crime and decrease criminal opportunities. The mediating links of motivation and opportunity, though often assumed, have almost never been measured. We directly test for the potential mediating effects of opportunity and motivation using county-level data for target-specific crime rates such as convenience store robberies, motorcycle thefts, etc. We link these with data on the supply and value of corresponding crime targets (e.g., number and annual sales of convenience stores). Opportunity levels were generally unrelated to property crime rates and do not appear to mediate the U-C relationship.

[1]  M. Smith,et al.  Macroeconomic and Social-Control Policy Influences on Crime Rate Changes, 1948-1985 , 1988 .

[2]  Kevin Lang,et al.  The Reemergence of Segmented Labor Market Theory , 1988 .

[3]  M. Smith,et al.  Age composition and alternative explanations of crime: Directions for theory and research , 1988 .

[4]  C. Hale.  Crime and the Business Cycle in Post-War Britain Revisited , 1998 .

[5]  C. Hale,et al.  Testing the Relationship between Unemployment and Crime: A Methodological Comment and Empirical Analysis Using Time Series Data from England and Wales , 1991 .

[6]  P. Cook,et al.  Crime and the Business Cycle , 1985, The Journal of Legal Studies.

[7]  C. Britt.  Reconsidering the unemployment and crime relationship: Variation by age group and historical period , 1997 .

[8]  I. Ehrlich.  Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation , 1973, Journal of Political Economy.

[9]  C. Britt.  Crime and unemployment among youths in the United States, 1958-1990: a time series analysis , 1994 .

[10]  N. Fielding,et al.  Crime and economic activity: a panel data approach , 1999 .

[11]  Robert J. Sampson,et al.  Urban Black Violence: The Effect of Male Joblessness and Family Disruption , 1987, American Journal of Sociology.

[12]  A. M. Masih,et al.  Temporal causality and the dynamics of different categories of crime and their socioeconomic determinants: evidence from Australia , 1996 .

[13]  Kenneth C. Land,et al.  UNEMPLOYMENT AND CRIME RATES IN THE POST- WORLD WAR II UNITED STATES: A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS , 1985 .

[14]  Thomas J. Young,et al.  Unemployment and Property Crime: Not a Simple Relationship , 1993 .

[15]  R. Agnew.  Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency , 1992, Crime, Inequality and the State.

[16]  R. Michalowski,et al.  Crime, unemployment, and social structures of accumulation: An inquiry into historical contingency , 1997 .

[17]  M. Smith,et al.  Crime and Unemployment: Effects across Age and Race Categories , 1992 .

[18]  Exploring the relationship between unemployment and property crime , 1998 .

[19]  Robert D. Crutchfield,et al.  Work and Crime: The Effects of Labor Stratification , 1997 .

[20]  Darrell J. Steffensmeier,et al.  Youth, Underemployment, and Property Crime: Differential Effects of Job Availability and Job Quality on Juvenile and Young Adult Arrest Rates , 1989 .

[21]  W. Gove,et al.  ARE UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS A VALID INDICATOR OF THE INDEX CRIMES? AN AFFIRMATIVE ANSWER WITH MINOR QUALIFICATIONS* , 1985 .

[22]  Lawrence E. Cohen,et al.  Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach , 1979 .

[23]  J. Braithwaite,et al.  Unemployment and Crime: Toward Resolving the Paradox , 1998 .

[24]  R. Allen,et al.  Socioeconomic Conditions and Property Crime: A Comprehensive Review and Test of the Professional Literature , 1996 .

[25]  D. Osgood.  Poisson-Based Regression Analysis of Aggregate Crime Rates , 2000 .

[26]  Stephen B. Jarrell,et al.  Some Determinants of Property Crime: Economic Factors Influence Criminal Behavior But Cannot Completely Explain the Syndrome , 1987 .

[27]  Ted Chiricos,et al.  Rates of Crime and Unemployment: An Analysis of Aggregate Research Evidence , 1987 .

[28]  Robert D. Crutchfield,et al.  Labor Stratification and Violent Crime , 1989 .

[29]  Michael W. Neustrom,et al.  Economic dislocation and property crime , 1995 .

[30]  J. Heineke,et al.  A Labor Theoretic Analysis of Criminal Choice , 1975 .

[31]  Kenneth C. Land,et al.  Age structure and crime: symmetry versus asymmetry and the projection of crime rates through the 1990s , 1987 .

[32]  Kenneth C. Land,et al.  Property Crime Rates in the United States: A Macrodynamic Analysis, 1947-1977; With Ex Ante Forecasts for the Mid-1980s , 1980, American Journal of Sociology.

[33]  A. Kposowa,et al.  Reassessing the structural covariates of violent and property crimes in the USA : a county level analysis , 1995 .

[34]  B. Reilly,et al.  Crime and Unemployment in Scotland: An Econometric Analysis Using Regional Data , 1992 .

[35]  D. Deadman,et al.  CRIME AND THE BUSINESS CYCLE IN POST-WAR BRITAIN , 1994 .

[36]  R. Sampson.  STRUCTURAL SOURCES OF VARIATION IN RACE-AGE-SPECIFIC RATES OF OFFENDING ACROSS MAJOR U.S. CITIES* , 1985 .

[37]  C. Moody,et al.  Age structure and crime rates: The conflicting evidence , 1991 .

[38]  Kenneth C. Land,et al.  A General Framework for Building Dynamic Macro Social Indicator Models: Including an Analysis of Changes in Crime Rates and Police Expenditures , 1976, American Journal of Sociology.

[39]  Douglas Manuel,et al.  Regional unemployment and crime trends: An empirical examination , 1988 .

[40]  Welfare and Burglary , 1996 .

[41]  R. Merton.  Social Structure and Anomie , 1938 .

[42]  David L. Sjoquist,et al.  Property Crime and Economic Behavior: Some Empirical Results , 1973 .

[43]  L. Edward Wells,et al.  DIRECT PARENTAL CONTROLS AND DELINQUENCY , 1988 .

[44]  Dana L. Haynie,et al.  GENDER, STRUCTURAL DISADVANTAGE, AND URBAN CRIME: DO MACROSOCIAL VARIABLES ALSO EXPLAIN FEMALE OFFENDING RATES?* , 2000 .

[45]  R. Clarke,et al.  UNDERSTANDING CRIME DISPLACEMENT: AN APPLICATION OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY , 1987 .

[46]  R. Parker,et al.  UNEMPLOYMENT, CRIME, AND IMPRISONMENT: A PANEL APPROACH* , 1986 .

[47]  Miles D. Harer,et al.  Did Crime Rise or Fall During the Reagan Presidency? The Effects of an “Aging” U.S. Population on the Nation's Crime Rate , 1991 .