Over the weekend, the New York Times published an intriguing story about how the crime rate is dropping across the country, contrary to what most people thought would happen when the economy went south.
Conventional wisdom holds that when people start losing jobs or have poor job prospects, they are more likely to turn to a life of crime, thus crime will rise in a bad economy. But so far, the first half of 2009 has had a significantly lower crime rate than the same period last year. Across the country crime in the first half of 2009 is down between 7 and 22 percent from the same period in 2008.
Most analysts and scholars are at a loss for why this is the case. Obviously, in areas like Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and other big cities that have started new crime fighting initiatives in the past six months analysts can point to a reason for the falling crime rate. In other cities, where no major policy change has taken place, how can one account for a drop in crime?
What’s your opinion? In general, why has crime dropped across the country?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/weekinreview/02dewan.html?_r=1
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