Crime and Unemployment

A Study of Social and Economic Factors that Influence the rise and fall of Criminal Behavior in the United States.

By:

Elizabeth Bruce

Natasha Espinosa

Derrick Phillips

Contents

Introduction 3

Hypotheses 5

Methodology 5

Data & Data Collection 6

Analysis 8

Summary & Conclusion 9

Introduction

Crime and its causes, have been studied the world over. In particular, there have been noted studies on the cost and benefit of crime, state of the economy and crime, and unemployment and wages and crime (Jones and Kutan). Some researchers have found relationships between unemployment and crime, while others have not. However, a more controversial issue is the explicit relationship between unemployment and crime. In other words, does unemployment cause crime or are there other causes (Papps and Winkelmann)? Specifically, does the average median income of a household, the individual poverty level, high school graduation rate, population, or the rate of divorce have influences on crime in the US?

It has been observed that during the 1980s, the unemployment rate rose, as so did the crime rate, while in the 1990’s both declined (Gould, Mustard and Weinberg). If a contributory relationship is established, then development of incentives to avoid layoffs, sponsor work programs, and create unemployment relief programs should help to deter crime. The more job opportunities that are available to the able workforce, the less crime will be experienced in the community. Similarly, if a causal relationship is found between crime and other social and economic factors like divorce rate, median income, graduation rate, and poverty level, then ways to positively influence these factors should be developed and enacted in order to further deter crime in society.

In Ehrlich’s model, individuals divide their time between legal activities and risky illegal activities. If legal income...