NCJ Number
72704
Date Published
1976
Length
510 pages
Annotation
Crime as an effect of urbanization and crime as a cause of inhibition of urbanization is explored theoretically within the context of urban economic models and analysis. A traditional microeconomic analysis is used to study crime causation and control.
Abstract
This paper examines the supply of crime function in which crime is a function of probability of apprehension, conviction and punishment; severity of punishment; illegal income opportunities; legal income opportunities; and tastes. This research has shown, in general, that the probability and severity of punishment has crime-retarding effects but that it has less influence on crime than the possibility of economic gains and social taste. It was shown that crime increases and income increases could both occur at the same time and still be consistent within the context of the supply of crime theory. For example, while economic expansion in the 1960's increased legal income opportunities, having a crime retarding effect, rising affluence also increased illegal opportunities. Crime affects ubanization in that the probability and severity of criminal victimization enter into the location decision for both residences and businesses. Crime exacerbated the 'urban crisis' of the 1960's through the mechanism of a crime-flight spiral. The crime-fear-pedestrian density spiral, a contributor to central city abandonment, is analytically described within the supply of crime model. Simply stated, a causal link between increases in the perception of crime and increase in actual crime results from increasing fear of crime, which reduces pedestrian densities, which reduces informal policing, which, in turn, decreases the probability of apprehension. Before the extent of manufacturing specialization in a city's local industry mix could be related to crime, a theoretical framework had to be developed by linking the supply of crime model to the Thompson-Mattila model of urban development. Some potentially useful policy strategies to control urban crime, as well as retard central city decline, are discussed. These include making maximal use of informal law enforcement, using police law enforcement activitiy very intensely on limited targets, decriminalizing victimless crimes, and establishing vice districts in the central city, reconsidering racial integration policies to preserve stability of neighborhoods, and making schools safe. Tabular data, figures, and 137 references are appended. (Author abstract modified)