Some social scientists argue that poverty creates crimes. A poor person, they say, sees little hope of improving his economic conditions legitimately, so he is more likely to resort to stealing from or otherwise victimizing others. According to this theory, crime is not really the fault of criminals but of “society.”
There were predictions at the beginning of the current economic crisis that America would see an explosion of crime as people lost their jobs. But that does not appear to be the case.
Despite 7 million lost jobs, “crime has plummeted to its lowest level since the early 1960s,” a Wall Street Journal columnist noted in early 2010.
And as Duncan Currie, writing for National Review Online, recently pointed out, “[T]his trend is continuing. During the first six months of 2010, ‘the nation saw a 6.2 percent decrease in the number of reported violent crimes and a 2.8 percent decrease in the number of reported property crimes compared to data for the same time frame during 2009,’ according to the FBI.”
Murder, robbery and car thefts all dropped by significant percentages.
Currie added, “[I]t’s undeniable that the country as a whole has experienced much less violent crime with unemployment above 9 percent than it did when the jobless rate was below 5 percent. The belief that a painful economic downturn inevitably triggers more violence has been refuted.”
That is encouraging. The poor and jobless have a tough enough time without the added burden of being maligned as likely thieves or killers just because of their circumstances.