The link between unemployment and rising crime

Press, 18 May 1982, Page 21

The link between unemployment and rising crime

The British prison system is on the verge of a breakdown, says an official Ministry of Justice report. MALCOLM DEAN, of the London “Guardian,” examines the Prime Minister’s (Mrs Thatcher) belief that there is no direct relationship between the crime wave and the ever growing number of people without work (a study which also has significance for New Zealand).

Is it a coincidence or is there a direct causal link between the steep rise in crime and the huge increase in unemployment? Is there a correlation, or is “it one of those accidents like more' storks being noticed in years in which the birthrate rises? The Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, could not have been more unequivocal in Parliament. She denied there was any direct relationship in exchanges with the Opposition leader, Michael Foot, last month when the issue was first raised. She has continued to hold to her position and it is not hard to see why. A commitment to reduce crime was one of the central planks of the Conservative manifesto. If a direct relationship .can be shown between rising crime and unemployment, the consequences could be as electorally damaging as the dole queues themselves. The issue is bound to run right through to the next election.

Mrs Thatcher is going to find her back against the wall. Certainly she can point to periods of rising prosperity in which crime has also risen (some criminologists suggest this is because of the increased , opportunities which rising prosperity provides). But she is going to find it more difficult to identify -a postwar period of rising crime coinciding with failing unemployment. Indeed, the last period in which there was any s"stained and significant drop in unemployment — between the spring of 1972 and the autumn of 1973 — the number of crimes also dropped, reinforcing the suggestion there is a link between the two (see graph).

Most of the studies of the issue have been carried out in the United States. They are summarised in a memorandum submitted to . the House of Lords committee on unemployment by lan Crow, research officer of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (N.A.C.R.0.). There are three particular reports r on which Mrs Thatcher’s opponents will fasten. The first was carried out 10 years ago by three American economists, Phil-

lips, Votey, and Maxwell. They looked at young people over a period of 20 years and baldly concluded: “Changing labour market opportunities are sufficient to explain increasing crime rates for youth.” Moreover, the econometric model which they developed was able to predict “remarkably well" the crime and arrest figures for the three years which followed their project. The second study, also by an American, B. M. Fleisher, examined the effects of income on the delinquency of young people. It concluded that a drop in income could have as great an impact as unemployment. The author suggested that a 10 per cent rise in income in high, delinquent areas could be expected to reduce delinquency rates by 15 to 20 per cent The third report, which will be quoted most widely of all, is the 1980 annual report of the Northumbria Police. This compares two six-month periods in which crime and unemployment figures were collected in the county — January to June, 1978. and July to December, 1980. Between these two periods, unemployment went up by 29 per cent and crime by 14 per cent.

The report states: “The actual number of detected crimes committed by unemployed people was 48 per cent greater in the 1980 period than the 1978.” As the report notes, some increase in the proportion of unemployed offenders in detected crime could be expected with the increase in unemployment. There would not need to be a direct connection between the two for this to happen. But if there was no connection between unemployment and crime, then the crime rate for those in work should have gone up at the same time that the rate for unemployed increased. Instead, crime committed by the employed dropped by 7 per cent.

The report adds: "It is a matter of great concern and must reflect the increasing hardship which unemployment can cause and the frustration of having time available but no rewarding pursuit to fill the gap. Even when unemployment becomes less of a problem, new technology will reduce the working week and increased free time will need to be channelled into worthwhile activities.” Like any issue examined by the academics, however,

Mrs Thatcher will be able to find some studies which suggest there is no direct relation between unemployment and crime. If she wants to impress the Left, she could turn to Herman Mannheim’s “Social Aspects of Crime.” Mannheim, who has a hallowed place in the pantheon of sociology gods, closely examined the effects of the pre-war Depression on crime. He discovered, for example, that in 1926, Sheffield’s unemployment almost doubled, but there was hardly any increase in crime in the city. In the same year, Leeds actually showed a decrease in crime as its unemployment spiralled upwards. . Even in Mannheim’s study, however, there is plenty of evidence that unemployment among certain age groups — particularly the under-21s — increases crime. He also found clear.. evidence that certain types of crime increased with unemployment. The number of begging offences, for example, doubled between 1919 and 1922 as the unemployment rate increased sixfold. The Prison Commissioners of 1921 were in no doubt that the increase in unemployment was increasing the prison population: “It , is

probably right to say that unemployment is one of the chief contributory factors to the prison population of today . . .” There are four reasons why the present recession could be causing some of the overcrowding in the present prison system. 1. An unemployed offender is less likely to be given bail than a defendant who has work. Employment is one of the criteria by which courts take their decisions about remanding people in custody. Successive Home Secretaries have warned the courts to be careful about remanding defendants in work because of the danger of them losing their job. 2. An unemployed offender is more likely to be given a custodial sentence. They often do not have the resources to pay a fine. Moreover, the offender with a job may win sympathy from some courts which are aware of the research which says that tne best way of keeping a man straight is a job, a wife, and a house. The offender who loses his job by being sent to prison risks losing his wife and his home as well. 3. The unemployed offender is less likely to receive parole. The parole

review committees try to avoid being prejudiced by this fact, but an offender who can tell the board he has been promised a job on release is obviously in a better position whan an offender who faces unemployment on release. 4. The higher the unemployment rate the more likely that offenders who are lucky enough to get a fine end up in prison for non payment. There is also the problem which the present recession creates for the offenders leaving prison. Finding a job after a prison sentence was difficult enough in 1970, when unemployment was only 500,000. A succession of studies have shown a direct link between recidivism and unemployment. One of the best known, by Martin and Webster, concluded that offenders who committed their original crime while unemployed had a 73 per cent chance of being reconvicted.

All the researchers in the field are careful to avoid suggesting that unemployment is the single, or even the main cause, of crime What most of them assert, however, is that there is a direct relationship between unemf'o vm ent and crime.