Unemployment And Crime

A number of studies have investigated the extent to which levels of welfare benefits reduce crime among the unemployed. This study paper expands on the research by testing whether the intensity of other welfare programs aimed at the unemployed affect their criminal activity. The study uses evidence from a Danish social experiment that randomly assigned active labor market programs of different levels of intensity to newly unemployed individuals.

This study, based on research carried out by NACRO Research Unit between 1984 and 1986, considers the link between unemployment and crime and includes an examination of how unemployment affects the administration of justice in magistrates courts.

We are often told that unemployment is 'no excuse' for committing crimes. It certainly does not follow, as many in government would have use believe, that crime is unrelated to social conditions. Examining a mass of evidence from Great Britain, the United States, Canada and other industrialised countries, Steven Box shows how criminal activity increased with unemployment, poverty and sharpened competition between firms. He demonstrates that corporate as well as individual crime is affected by the experience of recession and that changing pressures and opportunities alter the character and distribution of deviance as well as increasing its incidence. Although deterioration in material circumstances does lead to more crime, however, it does not alone account for the massive increase in prison populations or increasingly repressive systems of social control. These developments, the author argues, flow more from government attempts to restructure the labour force and the natural reaction of minor state officials like judges, police and probation officers to the changing 'logic' of their situations.

A study of Middlesborough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Darlington.

This book seeks to raise the profile of economic perspectives on crime and criminal justice. It includes exemplars and original contributions, welded into a coherent whole by commentaries on each chapter and annotated further readings. It includes sections concerning the economic analysis of crime and punishment crime and the labor market and modeling the system-wide costs of criminal justice policies.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: 1,0, University of Bremen (Hanse Law School), course: Kriminologie und Grundlagen des Strafrechts, language: English, abstract: It is a stereotype and a lot of people think it true: Unemployed people are more criminal than others. Based on empirical studies and criminological essays, this paper shall find out if this is actually true. It shall be examined if there is a direct connection between unemployment and delinquency, focusing on the individuals and the question if unemployment causes them to commit a crime. To become acquainted with the origins of delinquency and the situation of unemployed individuals, the work of Hirschi and the report of Krüger and Amelang, which contain essential information, have been of great importance. To gather empirical evidence for a connection, criminal statistics and other empirical studies shall be examined at first. Afterwards, the consequences of unemployment and the causes of delinquency shall be described. Eventually it shall be determined if consequences and causes correspond to each other or induce one another. Referring to the results the conclusion will answer the question if there is a link.