NCJ Number
226099
Editor(s)
Deborah Spence
Date Published
September 2008
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This issue features articles that focus on various aspects of the national crisis of property foreclosures and their impacts on public safety, with attention to local property crime, violent crime, and white-collar crime.
Abstract
An overview article notes that foreclosed homes and their neighborhoods are magnets for violent crime, metal theft, and property damage. Related white-collar crimes such as mortgage fraud (mortgage bailout scams) are also increasing, as people affected by the mortgage crisis and rising debt are vulnerable to various scams that promise relief. An article that focuses on property crime related to the foreclosure crisis notes that the foreclosure crisis has created masses of empty houses that attract thieves and vandals. A booming commodities market, combined with worsening real estate conditions has created a demand for copper piping and other products waiting to be taken from unprotected, empty houses. Thieves are also stripping houses of air conditioning units, appliances, and even hardwood flooring. Other criminal uses of the empty houses include drug-dealing, prostitution, and marijuana-growing. A third article addresses the impact of the foreclosure crisis on violent crime. The article notes statistical evidence for a causal relationship between foreclosures and violent crime. Research has shown that although higher foreclosures could cause higher violent crime rates, the reverse has not been true; i.e., increasing violent crime rates are not linked to higher foreclosure rates. Foreclosure is not likely to be the cause of all violent crime, but if it is a causal factor in some violent crime, then responses can target the foreclosure factors related to violent crime, some of which may stem from encounters related to the profits involved in foreclosure-related property crime.