The Unemployment-Crime Relationship Revisited: Do Neighborhoods Matter?

• In Event: Ecological Theories of Crime

Abstract

Although a plethora of studies examine the relationship between unemployment and crime, less is known about the impact of informal social control on the strength of the unemployment-crime relationship. The present study assesses whether declining crime rates during the financial crisis, a period of surging unemployment, are due to informal social control at the neighborhood level. Because unemployment in this period was distributed across social class, it is possible that those who became unemployed were from neighborhoods with high levels of social control and were therefore deterred from offending. To examine these relationships, the present study utilizes data from Uniform Crime Reports, calls for service to the police, and the U.S. Census and American Community Survey for an Arizona city during and around the financial crisis. Preliminary findings suggest that unemployment is a significant predictor of increases in property and violent crime as well as engagement in informal social control; however, unemployment is associated with lower rates of both property crime and participation in informal social control during the financial crisis. This suggests that increased guardianship combined with the deterrent capabilities of collective behavior are important determinants of the unemployment-crime relationship.

Author

• Mary Elizabeth Hoyle, Arizona State University