CRIME AND THE BUSINESS-CYCLE
CRIME AND THE BUSINESS-CYCLE
复制标题
DOI：
10.1086/467767
复制
发表时间：
1985-01-01
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
ZARKIN, GA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
COOK, PJ;ZARKIN, GA
商业周期对经济机会的结构有着普遍的影响，因此也影响着人们的行为。这种影响反映在各种社会指标上，如入学率、出生率和劳动力参与率。如果犯罪率不受一般商业状况的影响，那确实会令人惊讶，当然，传统智慧认为“街头”犯罪是反周期的。经济衰退总是能为警察局长们未能阻止犯罪率上升提供一个令人满意的解释，而经验主义的犯罪学家们则不太相信犯罪率呈现出反周期模式的说法。我们很容易想到一些明显的例外情况，比如1982年（战后最严重的经济衰退触底的那一年）联邦调查局指数犯罪率的下降，以及20世纪60年代经济持续增长、失业率下降期间犯罪率的异常上升。华盛顿邮报最近的一篇专题文章引用了詹姆斯·Q.威尔逊的判断是，”总体失业率似乎与犯罪率几乎没有关系”，”没有依据预测经济衰退的加深或持续将导致犯罪率的上升
THE business cycle has a pervasive effect on the structure of economic opportunity and hence on behavior. The effect is reflected in social indicators as diverse as school enrollments, birthrates, and labor force participation.'It would be surprising indeed if crime rates were immune to general business conditions, and certainly the conventional wisdom asserts that" street" crime is countercyclical. A recession always provides police chiefs with a comfortable explanation for their failure to prevent increases in the crime rate.Empirically minded criminologists are not so comfortable with the assertion that crime rates exhibit a countercyclical pattern. Some apparent exceptions to this claim come readily to mind, such as the reductions in FBI Index crime rates in 1982 (the year the worst postwar recession hit bottom) and the extraordinary increases in these crime rates during the 1960s, a period of sustained economic growth and declining unemployment. A recent feature article in the Washington Post quotes James Q. Wilson's judgment that" overall unemployment seems to bear little or no relationship to crime" and that" there's no basis for a prediction that a deepening or continuing of the recession will lead to increases in the crime