Recession could have effect on crime rates

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Experts say that the next piece of collateral damage from the recession could be a spike in crime, as rising unemployment and widespread law-enforcement budget cuts begin to take their toll.

FBI statistics show that violent crime fell 3.5 percent nationally in the first six months of last year while property crimes dipped 2.5 percent.

Final 2008 statistics aren’t yet available, but history and anecdotal evidence suggest that an uptick in crime is imminent, if not already occurring.

A recent survey of 233 police departments by the Police Executive Research Forum found that 100 departments — 43 percent — reported rising levels of what they felt were recession-related crimes.

Forty percent said that thefts had increased in recent months, 39 percent reported that robberies were up, and 32 percent said burglaries had surged 20 percent.

That’s not surprising, said Richard Rosenfeld, a sociologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who studies national crime patterns.

“There’s little question that crime rates peak during or, on occasion, immediately after a recessionary period,” Rosenfeld said. “And that’s been the case for much of the [post-World War II] period.”

It’s happened in each of the last five recessions, he said.

If crime increases, a wave of public-safety budget cuts will only add to the problem.

“If police departments are already tightening their belts everywhere we look and we are seeing an initial impact on crime, it’s quite sobering to think about how things will look six months from now,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.

Declining sales and property taxes are forcing law enforcement agencies across the country to postpone buying equipment, cut recruitment classes, freeze overtime and redeploy staff to save money:

UIn Winthrop, Mass., the chief of police has been laid off.

UCity officials in St. Paul, Minn., are considering turning off half the city’s streetlights — every other one — to save $700,000 in electricity over two years.

UVirginia Gov. Tim Kaine has proposed cutting $72 million in funding for sheriff’s departments, a 7 percent cut.

UAtlanta police are taking days off without pay every two weeks.

Some 200 Boston police officers could face layoffs for the first time since 1982 and only the second time in the department’s history.

Cutting police officers has long been taboo, but lean finances have erased the stigma.

“Police departments usually are among the last agencies to be cut when the economy turns bad,” said Miami Police Chief John Timoney, the president of the Police Executive Research Forum. “The fact that most police departments currently are being asked to make cuts is an indication of how badly this recession is affecting local tax bases.”