Thursday, March 20, 2008
It is the economy, stupid
As you can see from my last post, I have been bothered by taxes and the seemingly inevitable recession. Here is a nice Op-Ed from the LA times on the relationship between economics and crime. I would also suggest checking out the first article in the latest issue of Criminology - Volume 45 (4), pp. 735-769. Good stuff.
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2 comments:
I wonder....how are people at the lowest end of the SES scale effected by swings in the economy, especially on the shorterm? Is there really reason to believe they feel the year-to-year changes? Certainly we ALL feel inflation (e.g., my oil bill has gone up from $1.09 per gallon 5 years ago to almost $4.00 a gallon last week - - OUCH!). We all feel that, along with other examples of inflation....but I wonder how those at the bottom of the employment sector feel other macro-level changes. It seems that social support services (e.g., welfare, section 8 housing support, after school programs, etc) are reasonably constant and that there would be a lagged effect to substantial changes.
One other thought...from Rosenfeld's op ed:
"My own research has shown that crime rates tend to rise when consumers become pessimistic. Why? Economic theory predicts that people weigh the costs and benefits of law-abiding versus criminal behavior. Like it or not, a failing economy increases the temptations of crime."
I find this ironic, since in just about every other context SOCIOLOGY driven criminology LAUGHS, nearly with tears coming down our faces, at the idea of rational choice theory. Why now from one of the worlds most brillant criminologist (and all around nice guy!)?
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