CRJ 4001 South University Comparative Study Paper & Excel

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CRJ 4001

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You are working for the research wing of the National Institute of Justice. You have been assigned to a governmental task force that is investigating murder and other violent crimes in the U.S. You have been asked to prepare a speech and brief the members of the Department of Justice with regard to your findings.

  • In your findings, you need to first differentiate between criminology and victimology. Some members of your audience do not know much about victimology so you need to be very detailed in your explanations.
  • You will also need to explain at least three different theories on victimization. Give the strengths and weaknesses of each theory that you choose.
  • Point out what the financial and psychological impacts are for murder victims or family members.

In addition to your speech, you need to create a chart that compares whether the U.S. has a higher or lower incidence of violent crime than U.K., Australia, South Africa, and Japan. Create this chart in Microsoft Excel.

Based on the analysis of your speech, answer the following questions in the same document where you have created the chart:

  • Does the U.S. have more violent crimes than other countries?
  • Do people's lifestyles in the U.S. place them more at risk than in other countries, or does the U.S. simply have more motivated criminals? Which one do you agree with and why?
  • How does victim compensation work in the United States?

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Reference Article 1 Rosenfeld, R., Vogel, M., & McCuddy, T. (2019). Crime and Inflation in U. S. Cities. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35(1), 195–210. https://doi-org.su.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10940-018-9377-x. Retrieved from https://web-b-ebscohost-com.su.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=e513cc831ae3-4732-8d88-7fad707ca89b%40sessionmgr101 Article 2 Walker, J., Wilson, P. R., Chappell, D., & Weatherburn, D. (1990). A Comparison of Crime in Australia and Other Countries. (cover story). Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice, 23, 1–8. Retrieved from https://web-b-ebscohost-com.su.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=e513cc83-1ae34732-8d88-7fad707ca89b%40sessionmgr101 Article 3 Schönteich, M. (2002). 2001 CRIME TRENDS: A turning point? SA Crime Quarterly, 1, 1–6. Retrieved from https://web-b-ebscohost-com.su.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&sid=e513cc83-1ae34732-8d88-7fad707ca89b%40sessionmgr101 Article 4 Byrne, J. M., Pattavina, A., & Taxman, F. S. (2015). International Trends in Prison Upsizing and Downsizing: In Search of Evidence of a Global Rehabilitation Revolution. Victims & Offenders, 10(4), 420–451. https://doi-org.su.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/15564886.2015.1078186. Retrieved from https://web-b-ebscohost-com.su.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=14&sid=e513cc83-1ae34732-8d88-7fad707ca89b%40sessionmgr101 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-018-9377-x ORIGINAL PAPER Crime and Inflation in U. S. Cities Richard Rosenfeld1 • Matt Vogel1,2 • Timothy McCuddy1 Published online: 3 March 2018  Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Objectives The current study replicates prior national-level research on the relationship between crimes committed for monetary gain and inflation in a sample of 17 U. S. cities between 1960 and 2013. Methods A random coefficients model is used to estimate the effects of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime over time, controlling for other influences. Results The estimates yield significant effects of inflation on acquisitive crime rates in the 17 cities. City-specific coefficients reveal nontrivial variation across the cities in the significance, size, and impact of inflation on acquisitive crime. Conclusions Continued low inflation rates should restrain future crime increases in many US cities. U. S. monetary policy should be evaluated with respect to its effect on crime. Keywords Acquisitive crime  Inflation  Random coefficient models Recent studies have found that the change in consumer prices over time is a robust predictor of crimes committed for monetary gain in the United States (Nunley et al. 2016; Rosenfeld and Levin 2016). Over the past half century, increases in acquisitive crime have coincided with rising prices and decreases in acquisitive crime have coincided with slowed inflation. It appears that inflation is an important part of the story of acquisitive crime trends during the contemporary era, not only in the United States but in other nations as well (Rosenfeld 2014). But the story of crime and inflation is far from finished. Nearly all of the research on crime and inflation, including the Nunley et al. (2016) and Rosenfeld and Levin (2016) & Richard Rosenfeld Richard_Rosenfeld@umsl.edu 1 University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, USA 2 OTB - Research for the Built Environment, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands 123 196 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 studies, has been conducted at the national level. It remains unclear whether similar results hold for subnational units, such as cities, that differ in both prices and crime rates. This paper reports the results of a study that addresses this unresolved research issue. We estimate the effects of inflation on annual rates of acquisitive crime in 17 US cities for which both inflation and crime data were available between 1960 and 2013. Our model yields estimates of inflation effects on city crime rates, controlling for income, unemployment, police strength, and other conditions associated with macro-level crime rates. We find significant inflation effects on crimes committed for monetary gain for the sample as a whole, but the significance and size of the effects differ across the cities. Background Several prior studies have reported a significant relationship between inflation and crime rates in the United States (e.g., Allen 1996; Cohen and Felson 1979; LaFree and Drass 1996; Ralston 1999). As Rosenfeld and Levin (2016) point out, however, past research lacks a compelling rationale for why the effect of inflation on crime rates should differ from that of other economic indicators, such as unemployment or economic growth. Rosenfeld and Levin contend that inflation increases robbery, burglary, and other crimes committed for monetary gain by bolstering consumer demand for cheap stolen goods. As prices rise, stolen goods become more attractive to consumers in comparison with the same goods sold by legitimate retailers, including bargain outlets such as the thrift stores operated by the Salvation Army and Goodwill Industries. Increased demand, in turn, strengthens incentives for the robbers, burglars, and thieves who supply underground markets with stolen merchandise. As a result, acquisitive crime rates increase. By the same logic, lower inflation diminishes the attraction of stolen goods to consumers and criminals alike, and acquisitive crime rates decline (Rosenfeld and Levin 2016:431–432). Nunley et al. (2016) posit a somewhat similar economic theory connecting acquisitive crime rates to inflation. Subnational Effects of Inflation Rosenfeld and Levin (2016) acknowledge the absence of direct empirical evidence for their theory of inflation effects on crime, owing to the paucity of data on the price of stolen goods over time. But even if the requisite evidence were available, previous studies of the impact of inflation on crime have been based almost exclusively on nation states as units of analysis.1 That leaves open the question of whether the criminogenic effects of inflation are similar across subnational units such as cities. It would be an obvious error, akin to the ecological fallacy, to assume that results from national-level analysis necessarily hold at the local level. Most macro-level etiological theories of crime assume that substantively meaningful variation exists among subnational units in crime and its covariates. Indeed, subnational variation is the basis on which these theories are commonly tested (e.g., Peterson and Krivo 2010). Crime policy is also set and evaluated primarily at the state and local level in the United States. In short, for both theoretical and policy purposes, it would be a mistake to assume that results obtained from national-level data on crime and inflation ipso facto are replicated at the local level. 1 An exception is a city-level study of crime and economic conditions by Baumer et al. (2013). In that study, however, inflation is measured at the level of US Census regions. 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 197 It is well known that both crime and commodity prices differ substantially across U. S. cities. The robbery rate in Houston, for example, is nearly twice that in Seattle.2 A pair of boy’s jeans costs $17.45 in Cincinnati and $22.07 in Chicago. An apartment in Cincinnati rents for $856 on average and $1236 in Chicago.3 These large between-city differences in crime and prices might prompt skepticism about whether the relationship between crime and inflation observed at the national level also exists at the local level. But between-city differences in crime and price levels need not correspond with withincity changes in crime rates and prices – inflation – the issue of primary concern in the current study. In fact, it appears that city crime trends have converged on a common national trend over the past several decades in the United States (McDowall and Loftin 2009). The same is true for city inflation trends (Cecchetti et al. 2002; Clark 1984). Even if the national and local trends are similar, however, the relationship between crime and inflation trends may differ across cities. For one thing, despite their general similarities, some variation does exist in city crime and inflation trends.4 Cities also differ in other respects, for example in income levels and police strength, that may affect crime rates, inflation, or both. Cities may also differ in the significance and size of the effects of inflation on crime rates. Finally, even if the relationship between crime and inflation observed at the national level is found to hold at the city level, it is unlikely to exist in all cities, and the deviant cases may contain important information about the dynamics of the relationship unavailable from either national-level or pooled city analyses. For all of these reasons, the national-level research leaves an important part of the crime and inflation story untold. The study of individual cities can help to fill in some of the remaining research gaps. Current Study This study analyzes the relationship between acquisitive crime rates and inflation in 17 U. S. cities between 1960 and 2013. Based on the forgoing discussion, we hypothesize that inflation has a significant and positive effect on city-level acquisitive crime rates. We evaluate this hypothesis in a random coefficients panel model that yields estimates of inflation effects on city acquisitive crime rates cities over the 54-year observation period. The model produces individual regression coefficients for each of the 17 cities, which indicate the range of variation across the cities in inflation effects on acquisitive crime. In addition to inflation, our models include measures of income, socioeconomic disadvantage, police per capita, and age composition. The specification of our city-level models is similar to the national-level models in Rosenfeld and Levin (2016). 2 The robbery data are from the 2012 Uniform Crime Reports (https://www.bjs.gov/ucrdata/). 3 The price comparisons, which should be viewed as rough approximations, are from Bankrate (http://www. bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx). 4 Cecchetti et al. (2002) report, for example, that although city inflation trends converge to a common mean, convergence may take several years to occur. To our knowledge, a similar assessment has not been conducted for city crime rate trends. 123 198 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 Data and Methods The outcome in our analyses is the acquisitive crime rate per 100,000 population for 17 US cities between 1960 and 2013. The measure of acquisitive crime consists of the combined rates of robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The crime data are crimes known to the police from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program (https://ucr.fbi. gov).5 The independent variable of primary interest is the inflation rate for the metropolitan areas of the 17 cities (see ‘‘Appendix’’). Inflation is defined as the year-over-year percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is based on the price paid by urban consumers for a representative market basket of goods and services, with 1982–1984 average city prices assigned the value of 100 (https://www.bls.gov/cpi). The current study is based on 17 cities for which annual inflation data were available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 1960 and 2013. The inflation data are for the metropolitan areas in which the 17 cities are situated; all other data are for the 17 central cities. In order to distinguish the effects of inflation on acquisitive crime rates from those of other economic and social conditions, several additional socioeconomic and demographic indicators are included in our analyses. Median family income, measured in nominal dollars,6 is from the 1960–2010 decennial censuses and is interpolated between census years. Data for 2011–2013 are from the American Community Survey (ACS) (https:// www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/). The annual civilian unemployment rate is from the Current Population Survey (CPS) (http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps.html). The poverty rate, the unemployment rate, the percentage of families with children under the age of 18 headed by females, and the percentage of the population that is black or African-American are highly correlated (a = .74) and have been combined by factor analysis into a single measure of socioeconomic disadvantage.7 The measures of poverty, female-headed families, and racial composition are from the decennial censuses and ACS. The analyses also include, from the CPS, the percentage of the city population between the ages of 15 and 24. Finally, the number of police officers per 10,000 population, from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, is included in the analyses as a measure of deterrence. These substantive indicators represent many of the major economic and social conditions shown in prior research to be associated with city crime rates (Land et al. 1990; McCall et al. 2010). In addition, we include a measure of time in our models to capture the effects of unmeasured time-varying conditions common to the 17 cities. The measure consists of 11 five-year intervals from 1960–1964, 1965–1970 … 2010–2013 (the final interval contains four years). The effects of inflation and the control variables could not be reliably estimated with single year or shorter intervals in the panel model used in the study.8 5 We thank Roland Chilton for sharing crime data for this analysis. 6 We measure income in nominal dollars because the inflation rate controls for price changes. 7 The factor scores are based on an orthogonal rotated solution. A single factor combining the four measures (eigenvalue = 2.82) was retained that explains 99% of the variance. The rotated and unrotated solutions are very similar. 8 With single year effects included, the model would not produce estimates of the effects of the explanatory variables based on the pooled data. Time intervals shorter than five years yielded missing estimates in the city-specific results. The likely reason is that these time intervals absorbed degrees of freedom required to estimate the pooled and city-specific coefficients. The Chi square test of parameter constancy, for example, is computed on 288 degrees of freedom (see Table 2). 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 199 Analytic Strategy We estimate the effect of inflation on acquisitive crime in a random coefficients linear panel model that yields an effect for the sample as a whole and separate effects for each of the 17 cities. We have selected this estimator precisely because it models panel variation in the effects of independent variables on the outcome, a key research objective. The specific model we use is from Swamy (1970), implemented in the xtrc routine in Stata 13.1 (see Poi 2003). The model assumes that the parameter estimates, both intercepts and slopes, are drawn from a random distribution common to the panels. Given this assumption, the model produces unbiased and efficient estimates of the outcome for the sample and for each of the panels. A Chi square test of the significance of the difference in the regression coefficients across the panels (termed ‘‘parameter constancy’’) is also provided. Multiple explanatory variables can be included in the equation, and lags of the outcome can be added to the righthand side to address serial correlation in the error term. Inspection of the pooled data indicated serial correlation (rho = .970, DW = .186). We therefore added the first lag of the acquisitive crime rate to the explanatory variables. The lagged outcome eliminated first-order serial correlation in the error term (rho = .059, DW = 1.984). The inclusion of the lagged outcome reduced the number of observations from 918 (54 years 9 17 cities) to 901. Finally, with the lagged outcome on the righthand side, the model estimates the residual change in the acquisitive crime rate – the effect of the explanatory variables on the change in the acquisitive crime rate from the prior year to the current year.9 Results We first present descriptive statistics for each of the covariates, followed by a graphic presentation of the acquisitive crime and inflation time series for the 17 cities. The descriptive statistics include the pooled mean, and the standard deviation, minimum, and maximum values for each variable between cities and within cities over time (see Table 1). The mean acquisitive crime rate for the sample is approximately 7141 crimes per 100,000 city population. Somewhat more of the variation in acquisitive crime occurs within than between the 17 cities. The mean inflation rate is just below 4%, and nearly all of the variation in inflation occurs within the cities over time, from a minimum inflation rate of approximately - 2.5% to a maximum of approximately 16.4%. The within-city variation in median family income is also far larger than the variation between the cities. The sample variation in the socioeconomic disadvantage factor is roughly similar between and within cities. The same is true for city age composition. Finally, the number of police officers per 10,000 city residents varies more between than within cities. The between- and within-city variation in the crime measure and the inflation rate are graphically displayed in Figs. 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows the acquisitive crime time series between 1960 and 2013. We observe notable differences across the cities in levels of acquisitive crime over the entire period. Despite the differences in acquisitive crime levels, 9 Lagged dependent variables are controversial. Many analysts discourage their use because they can induce downward bias in the coefficients on the explanatory variables (e.g., Allison 2015). In the present case, however, including the lagged acquisitive crime rate in the model slightly increases the coefficient on inflation. The coefficients on the other explanatory variables are non-significant regardless of whether the lagged outcome is included (see Table 2). 123 200 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 Table 1 Descriptive statistics Mean St. Dev. Minimum Maximum Acqu. crime Overall 2860.389 1388.057 18,332.500 Between 7140.605 1670.461 4452.553 10,785.350 Within 2356.409 782.004 15,694.500 16.500 Inflation 2.926 - 2.600 Between Overall 3.958 .114 3.817 4.137 Within 2.924 - 2.459 16.376 Income Overall 17,685 5029 95,725 Between 27,807 5381 20,494 39,878 Within 16,896 5129 83,653 Soc. disad. N (observations) = 918; n (cities) = 17; T (years) = 54 Overall Acqu. crime = acquisitive crimes per 100,000 population; Inflation = yearly percentage change in consumer prices; Income = median family income in dollars, Soc. disad. = factor score for unemployment, percent black, percent poor families, percent female-headed families with children; Age 15– 24 = percent age 15–24; Police = sworn officers per 10,000 population .945 - 1.647 3.047 Between .000 .792 - 1.332 1.447 Within .549 - 1.985 1.600 Age 15–24 Overall 2.383 11.499 24.286 Between 16.330 1.611 13.805 20.605 Within 1.799 8.500 20.316 Police Overall 8.686 6.807 52.635 Between 30.689 7.537 18.374 41.834 Within 4.683 13.731 44.217 20000 18000 16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Fig. 1 National and city acquisitive crime rates per 100,000 population, 1960–2013 however, the cities exhibit similar change in acquisitive crime over time. Acquisitive crime rates in the 17 cities generally rose from the 1960s to a peak in 1980, fell for a few years and then increased to a second peak in the early 1990s, and fell thereafter, a temporal 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 201 20 15 10 5 0 -5 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Fig. 2 National and city inflation rates, 1960–2013 (%) pattern that corresponds with annual change in the national acquisitive crime rate during the 54-year period. Acquisitive crime rates are higher on average in the 17 cities than the nation as a whole. The average city-level and national trends are nearly identical, however (r = .982). As shown in prior research, city crime trends appear to be offshoots of a common national trend (McDowall and Loftin 2009). There is little question that the inflation rates of the 17 cities follow a national trend. As shown in Fig. 2, the metro area inflation rates bunch tightly around the national inflation rate. The correlation between the average inflation rate for the 17 cities and the national inflation rate is .970. Inflation rose from the mid-1960s to peaks in the mid-1970s and in 1980. After cresting again in 1990 at just over 5%, inflation rates hovered between 2 and 4% until the Great Recession; in 2009 the CPI fell for the first time in nearly 60 years. The national acquisitive crime rate was associated with the ebb and flow of inflation during this period, rising with increases and falling with decreases in inflation (Nunley et al. 2016; Rosenfeld and Levin 2016). We now consider whether acquisitive crime and inflation rates are associated at the city level and whether this relationship withstands controls for other economic and social conditions. Panel Model Results Table 2 presents the estimates for the residual change in city acquisitive crime rates from the random coefficients panel regression. In Model 1 of the table, the lagged acquisitive crime rate and the inflation rate have significant effects on change in the acquisitive crime rate. None of the coefficients on the other variables in the model is statistically significant at the 5% level. Table 2 displays both the unstandardized regression coefficients (b) and the standardized coefficients (b). In Model 1, a one unit increase in inflation produces approximately 96 additional acquisitive crimes per 100,000 population. A one standard deviation increase in inflation is associated with a .099 standard deviation increase in the 123 202 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 Table 2 Effect of inflation and covariates on residual change in acquisitive crime rate (N = 901) Model 1 Acqu. crime lag Model 2 b b b .604* .605 .623* (.056) Inflation 96.348* .099 - 10.254 - 701.826 - .063 86.496 - .245 19.198 .030 – - 772.452 28.110 .007 11.089 - .270 .010 .004 (37.435) – - 3.571* – (1.754) Wald v2(16) = 625.140* v2(17) = 886.600* Parameter constancy v2(288) v2(304) = 566.700* = 565.370* - .166 (163.218) (36.625) Inflation 9 income (000) - 12.663 (1085.204) (149.142) Police .074 (21.782) (936.087) Age 15–24 171.400* (45.576) (21.711) Soc. disad. .623 (.060) (22.810) Income (000) b - .065 Random coefficient estimates. Standard errors in parentheses. Income in thousands. Period effects not shown. See Table 1 for variable definitions *p \ .05 contemporaneous acquisitive crime rate (approximately 283 acquisitive crimes per 100,000 population).10 These appear to be small effects, but because the estimates are conditioned on the lagged acquisitive crime rate they reflect the predicted change in acquisitive crime from one year to the next. The substantive import of inflation was especially pronounced during the first half of the observation period, when acquisitive crime was increasing rapidly. The acquisitive crime rate rose by .086 units of standard deviation per year between 1960 and 1985. All of this observed change in acquisitive crime was accounted for by the .099 standardized effect of inflation. (The combined effect of the other variables produced a small decrease in acquisitive crime.) Evaluating the effect of inflation on acquisitive crime should take account of the level of income over time and across cities. If income keeps pace with or exceeds inflation, we should expect the criminogenic effect of inflation to diminish. For that reason, we have included income in our regression model. But income should not only have an additive effect, it should condition the effect of inflation on acquisitive crime. Based on the logic model underlying the analysis, the effect of inflation on acquisitive crime should be stronger in less affluent, more disadvantaged cities where consumers may be especially likely to search for cheap stolen goods when prices rise. To evaluate this hypothesis, we 10 With the lagged outcome omitted from the model, the unstandardized and standardized coefficients on inflation are 78.0 and .080, respectively (p \ .05). The other explanatory variables remain non-significant (see fn9). 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 203 included interaction terms in the model for inflation 9 income and inflation 9 socioeconomic disadvantage. We found no evidence that the measure of socioeconomic disadvantage conditions the effect of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime rates. The interaction term including socioeconomic disadvantage is non-significant in estimations with and without the term including income (results not shown).11 By contrast, the inflation 9 income interaction term is statistically significant and, as hypothesized, negative (b = - 3.571, p \ .05). Inflation has a smaller effect on acquisitive crime in cities where the median family income is comparatively high than in less affluent cities. We inspected the random coefficients models for multicollinearity and nonlinearity. The variance inflation factors for the regressors show no evidence of multicollinearity.12 The model assumes that the outcome is a linear function of the predictors. We checked this assumption for the relationship between the change in the city crime rates and inflation by estimating a quadratic specification of the panel models incorporating the square of inflation. In results not shown, we found no evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the acquisitive crime rate and inflation. City-Specific Results We have characterized the panel regression results as indicating the effect of inflation on the change in the city acquisitive crime rate. In fact, however, the results pertain to the effects of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime in 17 individual cities. On average, the effect of inflation is positive and significant, but the variability in those effects could be quite large, and in some cities inflation may have no significant effect on the change in acquisitive crime. It is therefore informative to inspect the effects of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime rates in each of the cities. The random coefficients model returns a separate slope coefficient for each of the 17 cities in the sample. The Chi square test of parameter constancy indicates that the slope coefficients vary significantly across the cities (see Table 2). To determine whether the variance in the coefficients is attributable to inflation and not simply the other explanatory variables or the period effects, we re-estimated the model retaining only the lagged acquisitive crime rate and inflation on the right-hand side. The test for parameter constancy remained significant (v2 = 93.6, p = .0001).13 Figure 3 graphically summarizes the variance in the coefficients. To compare the effect sizes across the cities, the standardized coefficients (b) are shown. The standardized inflation effects vary from zero (Portland) to .184 (New York). In addition to New York, four cities cluster at the top of the display, with coefficients C .168 (Kansas City, Boston, St. Louis, Atlanta). In the remainder of the cities where the inflation effects are statistically significant, the standardized effects range from .125 to .062. Finally, in five of the 17 cities the effect of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime is not significant (Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland). 11 All results not shown are available from the first author by request. 12 In Model 1, the mean VIF = 1.43 and the max VIF = 1.74. The comparable values in Model 2 are increased by the interaction term, but remain within an acceptable range (mean VIF = 3.28, max VIF = 6.62). 13 The variance in the estimated effects is not due to the lagged acquisitive crime rate. With only the lagged crime rate in the model, the parameter constancy v2 = 30.7, p = .531. 123 204 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 0.2 New York Boston 0.18 Kansas City p < .05 p > .05 Atlanta St. Louis 0.16 0.14 Pittsburgh Philadelphia 0.12 0.1 Pooled mean = .099 Cleveland Milwaukee 0.08 Detroit Seattle 0.06 0.04 0.02 San Francisco Cincinnati Houston Los Angeles Chicago Portland 0 Fig. 3 Inflation effects on city acquisitive crime rates in units of standard deviation The variance in inflation effects across the cities is not simply a consequence of the presence in the sample of the five cities where inflation has no significant effect on acquisitive crime. With those cases omitted, the test for parameter constancy remains significant in models with and without the other explanatory variables and period effects (results not shown). The variance across the cities in inflation effects on acquisitive crime is both statistically significant and, in certain cases, of substantive significance as well. Consider the difference in the effects of inflation on the acquisitive crime rate in Cincinnati and New York, the cities with the smallest and largest inflation effects that are statistically significant. Figure 4 displays the predicted effect of inflation on the acquisitive crime rate in Cincinnati and New York, with the other explanatory variables set to their mean values. At the sample minimum and maximum inflation rates (- 2 and 16%), the predicted acquisitive crime rate in New York varies from 4228 to 7335 per 100,000 population, a difference of 73.5%. The comparable difference in Cincinnati is from 4789 to 5773 acquisitive crimes per 100,000 population, a difference of just 16.8%. The greater impact of inflation on acquisitive crime in New York than in Cincinnati is evident when the impact is evaluated at the extreme bounds of inflation during the 54-year observation period. But a marked difference between the two cities in the impact of inflation also exists when evaluated within a more modest range. Figure 4 displays the predicted inflation rates in Cincinnati and New York between minus one and one standard deviation from the sample mean, or inflation rates of approximately one and seven percent. Within this range, New York’s predicted acquisitive crime rate varies from 4789 to 5773 per 100,000 population, a difference of 20.6%. By contrast, the acquisitive crime rate in Cincinnati varies from 6373 to 6545 per 100,000 population, a difference of just 2.70%. These results pertain to the two cities in the sample with the greatest variance in significant inflation effects on acquisitive crime; other comparisons would have yielded smaller differences in impact. Nonetheless, there is considerable variability in the impact of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime, even in those cities where the inflation effects are statistically significant. Differences of the magnitude shown in Fig. 4 probably would attract the notice of crime control analysts and policymakers and, were they to develop an interest in crime, financial economists. We emphasize that these results serve 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 205 8000 Mean Acquisitive Crime Rate 7500 -1sd 7000 7335 7149 6500 6000 Cincinnati +1sd 6545 6373 6122 New York 5773 5500 5000 4500 4789 4228 4000 3500 3000 -2% 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% Inflation Fig. 4 Predicted acquisitive crime rate in Cincinnati and New York at intervals of inflation only to illustrate the differing impacts of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime. But we believe such individual case comparisons, where feasible, add informative context to the results of pooled analyses that distill the effects of explanatory variables into a single point estimate. Where Inflation Has No Effect Inflation has no statistically significant effect on acquisitive crime in Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland. These non-significant effects are not simply a function of large standard errors of the estimates; the estimates themselves are comparatively small, as shown in Fig. 3. It is not immediately obvious what demographic or socioeconomic characteristics the five cities share in common that might explain the null effects of inflation. We compared the cities with null inflation effects to those where the effects on acquisitive crime are significant with respect to each of the explanatory variables. The results are presented in Table 3. Table 3 Comparison of cities where inflation effects on acquisitive crime are significant and non-significant (N = 918) Inflation b Odds ratio .066 1.068 (.035) Income (000) .013* 1.013 (.005) Soc. disad. - .957* .384 (.140) Age 15–24 Logistic regression estimates. Cities with ns inflation effects = 1, else = 0. Standard errors in parentheses. Income in thousands. See Table 1 for variable definitions *p \ .05 - .217* .805 (.045) Police - .040* .961 (.012) Likelihood ratio v2(5) = 229.740* Pseudo R2 = .207 123 206 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 Table 3 displays logistic regression coefficients and odds ratios for the difference in inflation, income, socioeconomic disadvantage, age composition, and police strength between cities with and without significant inflation effects on acquisitive crime (assigned the values of zero and one, respectively). The cities differ significantly on each of the explanatory variables, except for the rate of inflation (p = .058). Cities where inflation is not significantly associated with acquisitive crime tend to be more affluent and less disadvantaged. They also have smaller youth cohorts and somewhat fewer police per capita. As noted above, less disadvantaged cities with higher median incomes are places where we might expect inflation effects on acquisitive crime to be muted. Even among the 12 cities with significant inflation effects on acquisitive crime, we found that the effects are weaker in locales with higher median incomes (results not shown). This assessment represents only a small step toward specifying the conditions under which the effects of inflation on acquisitive crime may vary in magnitude and significance. But the city-specific analyses do disclose the increments to knowledge to be gained from moving beyond standard panel analyses that distill the causes and consequences of social phenomena into a single pooled estimate. Discussion Prior studies of the influence of inflation on US crime rates have been conducted at the national level. Those studies have consistently found that inflation has a statistically significant and positive effect on crimes committed for monetary gain. National acquisitive crime rates rise with increases in inflation over time and fall with decreases in inflation. Prior research, however, leaves unanswered whether a similar relationship between inflation and acquisitive crime rates exists at the city level, arguably a more relevant unit of analysis for both criminological research and crime control policy. The current study replicates at the city level prior national-level research on the relationship between crimes committed for monetary gain and inflation in the United States. Inflation trends over the past half century are remarkably similar across our sample of 17 cities for which the requisite data on both inflation and crime were available. The citylevel trends also correspond closely to the national inflation trend. Nonetheless, cities may differ with respect to the effect of inflation on local crime rates. We therefore analyzed the relationship between inflation and acquisitive crime with random coefficient models that yield separate regression estimates for each of the 17 cities. In an analysis that pools the city-level data, we found a significant association between inflation and the residual change in city acquisitive crime rates between 1960 and 2013 that withstands controls for other influences on the change in acquisitive crime. The pooled results show that inflation increases acquisitive crime rates, particularly in less affluent cities. These results support the hypothesis that price increases prompt consumers to search for cheaper goods. Stolen goods cost less than those available from legitimate sources and should be especially attractive to consumers in areas where average incomes fail to keep pace with inflation. These results are based on panel regressions that pool into a single value the effects of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime in the 17 cities. The pooled regression results are generally confirmed by separate estimates for each of the 17 cities. We also discovered, however, considerable variability across the cities in the significance and size of the inflation effects. In five of the cities, we found no significant effect of inflation on 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 207 acquisitive crime. The null effect of inflation and the modest significant effect in many cities may result, we have suggested, from higher average incomes that reduce the demand for cheap stolen goods. In addition, both supply and demand may vary according to other characteristics of underground markets, including police effectiveness in stemming acquisitive crimes and the interpenetration of local drug markets and the market for stolen goods. The former would increase the risks associated with trafficking in stolen goods, while the latter could increase demand apart from changes in consumer prices. These and other sources of local variation in the dynamics of underground markets deserve attention in future research. The city-specific estimates reveal nontrivial variation in some of the inflation effects that are statistically significant. These are not ‘‘deviant’’ cases as usually understood. They are part of the normal covariation of crime and inflation across cities in the United States. The information they contain about the spatial dynamics of the relationship between crime and inflation would be lost if the relationship were examined merely by means of standard pooled cross-section time-series methods. An important, though by no means original, takeaway from this study is to learn how a model fits each panel unit whenever feasible in cross-section time-series analyses. That way, the investigator also learns how each unit influences the pooled results (see DeFina and Arvanites 2002). Several caveats about our analyses and results are in order. The 17 cities in the study are not necessarily representative of all large US cities. Caution should be exercised, therefore, in generalizing the results beyond the sample. Further, the variability in inflation effects found in the city-specific estimates should be viewed as merely illustrative of city differences in the significance, size, and impact of inflation on acquisitive crime. Finally, although we assume that the causal direction in the relationship between crime and inflation is from inflation to crime, some feedback is certainly possible such as, for example, when retailers raise prices in response to shoplifting.14 National level research, however, has shown that the causal direction of the relationship between crime and inflation is from inflation to crime (Rosenfeld and Levin 2016; Tang and Lean 2007). Within the confines of the current sample we conclude that inflation has a significant influence on the change over time in acquisitive crime rates in many, perhaps most, U. S. cities. In addition to extending the current analysis to a larger number of cities, which will depend on whether the Bureau of Labor Statistics increases the number of metropolitan areas for which it tracks inflation rates over time, future research should investigate the relationship between inflation and violent crime. Prior research has disclosed inflation effects on the homicide rates of several European nations and the United States (Rosenfeld 2014). There are good criminological reasons for assuming that inflation has both direct and indirect effects on violent crime. Studies have shown that violent crime rates are connected to changes in institutional legitimacy and other sources of social stress that have accompanied the rise and fall of inflation over time (Fischer 1996; LaFree 1998). In addition, inflation may influence violent crime through its effect on acquisitive crime. Disputes that arise among buyers and sellers in illegal markets cannot be settled by recourse to the police, courts, or other formal regulatory agencies (Venkatesh 2006). In such ‘‘stateless’’ social locations, violence becomes a potent enforcement mechanism (Black 1983). Burglars and thieves are also vulnerable targets for street robbers. Even if only a small fraction of acquisitive crimes end in violence, expansion in the market for stolen goods driven by increases in acquisitive crime can produce appreciable increases in violent crime (see Rosenfeld 2009). 14 We thank Eric Baumer for this insight. 123 208 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 U. S. cities have experienced a steep drop in street crime rates since the latter part of the twentieth century (Blumstein and Wallman 2006; Zimring 2007). Inflation rates have been running at or near historic lows for several years, at times well below the US Federal Reserve Board’s goal of 2%.15 The crime drop has been particularly pronounced in New York, where homicide rates have returned to the levels of the 1950s (Southall 2017). Many analysts attribute New York’s exceptional crime reductions to effective policing (e.g., Zimring 2007). Without discounting the role of the police, inflation has also likely played a part in New York’s crime decline. Recall that inflation has a greater effect on acquisitive crime in New York than in any other city in our sample, although a few other cities come close (see Fig. 3). Falling rates of inflation merit a prominent place among the factors responsible for the historic drop in U. S. crime rates (Rosenfeld and Levin 2016). Fischer (1996) has charted four ‘‘great waves’’ of price increases since the Middle Ages, the last of which occurred throughout the developed world during the final quarter of the twentieth century. Each wave of inflation was followed by an extended period of price stability and relatively low crime rates. Crime forecasts are always hazardous and prone to upset by exogenous shocks.16 But low inflation rates, which appear to be at least partly responsible for the storied crime decline in many American cities, should continue to curb crime increases in the foreseeable future. The change in consumer prices over time is driven by national and international forces – including exogenous shocks in the supply of energy and long term expansion and contraction in the money supply (Nunley et al. 2016)—over which individual cities have little control. Subnational settings are appropriate criminal justice policy units; monetary policy is a federal responsibility. But what are the broad policy objectives that should guide the quest for the optimal inflation rate? Two economists have written that ‘‘policymakers should aim for an inflation rate that maximizes the economic well-being of the public’’ (Billi and Kahn 2007:6). We agree but would expand public wellbeing to encompass the considerable costs of crime to victims and society (McCollister et al. 2010). It is time for the unheralded consequences of low inflation for crime to become one of the guideposts for evaluating monetary policy in the United States. Appendix Sample of 17 Metropolitan Areas and Central Cities Atlanta, GA Boston-Brockton-Nashua, MA-NH-ME-CT Chicago-Gary-Kenosha, IL-IN-WI Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN Cleveland-Akron, OH Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, MI Houston–Galveston-Brazoria, TX Kansas City, MO-KS 15 See https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/annual-report/2015-monetary-policy-and-economicdevelopments.htm#xsubsection-14-c4f66975. 16 For example, some economists expect inflation rates to increase if ‘‘trade wars’’ break out under the Trump Presidency (Zumbrun 2016). See, also, Rosenfeld (2016; Rosenfeld et al. 2017) on unexpected homicide increases in American cities during 2015 and 2016. 123 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 209 Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, CA Milwaukee-Racine, WI New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-DE-MD Pittsburgh, PA Portland-Salem, OR-WA San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA St. Louis, MO-IL References Allen RC (1996) Socioeconomic conditions and property crime. Am J Econ Sociol 55:293–308 Allison P (2015) Don’t put lagged dependent variables in mixed models. https://statisticalhorizons.com/ lagged-dependent-variables. Accessed 21 Feb 2018 Baumer EP, Rosenfeld R, Wolff KT (2013) Are the criminogenic consequences of economic downturns conditional? In: Rosenfeld R, Edberg M, Fang X, Florence CS (eds) Economics and youth violence: crime, disadvantage, and community. New York University Press, New York Billi RM, Kahn GA (2007) What is the optimal inflation rate? https://www.kansascityfed.org/PUBLICAT/ ECONREV/PDF/2q08billi_kahn.pdf. Accessed 21 Feb 2018 Black D (1983) Crime as social control. Am Sociol Rev 48:34–45 Blumstein A, Wallman J (eds) (2006) The crime drop in America, Revised edn. Cambridge University Press, New York Cecchetti SG, Mark NC, Sonora RJ (2002) Price index convergence among United States Cities. Int Econ Rev 43:1081–1099 Clark GL (1984) Does inflation vary between cities? Environ Plan 16:513–527 Cohen LE, Felson M (1979) Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach. Am Sociol Rev 44:588–607 DeFina RH, Arvanites TM (2002) The weak effect of imprisonment on crime: 1971–1998. Soc Sci Q 83:635–653 Fischer DH (1996) The great wave: price revolutions and the rhythm of history. Oxford University Press, New York LaFree G (1998) Losing legitimacy: street crime and the decline of social institutions in America. Westview, Boulder LaFree G, Drass KA (1996) The effect of changes in intraracial income inequality and educational attainment on changes in arrest rates for African Americans and whites, 1957–1990. Am Sociol Rev 61:614–634 Land KC, McCall PL, Cohen LE (1990) Structural covariates of homicide rates: are there any invariances across time and social space? Am J Sociol 95:922–963 McCall PL, Land KC, Parker KF (2010) An empirical assessment of what we know about structural covariates of homicide rates: a return to a classic 20 years later. Homicide Stud 14:219–243 McCollister KE, French MT, Fang H (2010) The cost of crime to society: new crime-specific estimates for policy and program evaluation. Drug Alcohol Depend 108:98–109 McDowall D, Loftin C (2009) Do city crime rates follow a national trend? The influence of nationwide conditions on local crime patterns. J Quant Criminol 25:307–324 Nunley JM, Stern ML, Seals RA, Zietz J (2016) The impact of inflation on property crime. Contemp Econ Policy 34:483–499 Peterson RD, Krivo LJ (2010) Divergent social worlds: neighborhood crime and the racial-spatial divide. Russell Sage Foundation, New York Poi BP (2003) Swamy’s random-coefficients model. Stata J 3:302–308 123 210 J Quant Criminol (2019) 35:195–210 Ralston RW (1999) Economy and race: interactive determinants of property crime in the United States, 1958–1995. Am J Econ Sociol 58:405–434 Rosenfeld R (2009) Crime is the problem: homicide, acquisitive crime, and economic conditions. J Quant Criminol 25:287–306 Rosenfeld R (2014) Crime and inflation in cross-national perspective. Crime Justice 43:341–366 Rosenfeld R (2016) Documenting and Explaining the 2015 Homicide Rise: Research Directions. NCJ 249895. National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC Rosenfeld R, Levin A (2016) Acquisitive crime and inflation in the United States: 1960–2012. J Quant Criminol 32:427–447 Rosenfeld R, Gaston S, Spivak H, Irazola S (2017) Assessing and Responding to the Recent Homicide Rise in the United States. NCJ 251067. National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC Southall A (2017) Crime in New York City plunges to a level not seen since the 1950s. New York Times (December 27). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-crime-2017.html. Accessed 21 Feb 2018 Swamy PAVB (1970) Efficient inference in a random coefficient regression model. Econometrica 38:311–323 Tang CF, Lean HH (2007) Will inflation increase crime rate? New evidence from bounds and modified Wald tests. Global Crime 8:311–323 Venkatesh SA (2006) Off the books: the underground economy of the urban poor. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Zimring FE (2007) The Great American crime decline. Oxford University Press, New York Zumbrun J (2016) GDP, inflation and interest rates forecast to rise under Trump Presidency. Wall Street Journal (November 13). http://www.wsj.com/articles/gdp-inflation-and-interest-rates-forecast-to-riseunder-trump-presidency-1479054608. Accessed 21 Feb 2018 123 Journal of Quantitative Criminology is a copyright of Springer, 2019. All Rights Reserved. AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY trends No.23 & A Comparison of Crime in Australia and Other Countries issues in crime and criminal justice J. Walker, P. R. Wilson, D. Chappell and D. Weatherburn Since Australia was first used by the British as a penal colony, there has always been considerable interest in comparisons between crime and punishment in this country and elsewhere. From the early days of colonisation the principle comparisons made were between the convict society, which was viewed by some as a kind of social laboratory, and the English society which had created it. The purpose of such comparisons was then, as now, to judge the relative merits or demerits of the two societies and their criminal justice systems. In more recent years it has become fashionable to broaden the scope of comparison to include other nations. However, until now, such comparison has proved surprisingly difficult, due largely to the variety and complexity of the criminal justice systems themselves, and differences in the way they record and define their activities. With the advent of crime surveys, utilising standard sampling techniques and questions to obtain information about victimisation experiences, many of these dilemmas have been overcome as this unique International Survey of Crime Victims vividly demonstrates. The Survey findings reveal that Australia has crime rates which are much more comparable to those of North America than Europe. In a number of cases these rates are the highest recorded among the 14 jurisdictions included in the survey - a result which must surely give cause for concern to all Australians and reinforce the need for the establishment of a national crime prevention strategy. Duncan Chappell Director June 1990 ISSN 0817-8542 ISBN 0 642 15435 X An Overview • How does Australia compare with other countries in terms of its rates of crime and offending? Are we more, or less, likely to become a victim of a crime than people who live in other countries? • How do Australians feel about their police? Are police in Australia more respected or less respected than their counterparts overseas? Do Australians get the services they need from their police? • Is there anything about the Australian way of life which makes us particularly vulnerable to crime, or does our Australian Institute of Criminology GPO Box 2944 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia http://www.aic.gov.au Australian Institute of Criminology supposedly free and easy lifestyle reduce the impact of crime? • Do Australians take appropriate preventative measures to avoid or deter criminals? • How do our opinions on sentencing compare with those of people overseas? During 1989, over two thousand Australians took part in a survey designed to answer these and other questions about crime. At the same time, similar sized samples of the population of ten other countries and the three major administrative units of the United Kingdom were being asked identical questions. Questions asked in the survey included details of incidents occurring to respondents over the previous five years, and their responses to them, including degree of satisfaction with police efforts. Surveys of people's experience of crime offer an alternative view of crime levels to that based on police statistics. It is extremely difficult to compare police figures from one country to another as different police jurisdictions often use diverse methods of recording and defining particular offences. Though ‘victim surveys', as they are called, are far from foolproof, they at least allow researchers to estimate the risk of crime for citizens in particular countries as well as citizens’views regarding crime and sentencing matters. So how did Australia emerge from these comparisons? Unhappily, the report concludes that Australian rates of crime are in some respects very high compared with most other comparable countries. Australia is ranked third highest of the fourteen countries in terms of overall victimisation, behind the other two non-European countries, the USA and Canada. In assaults involving force, in the less serious types of sexual incidents, in burglary and in motor vehicle thefts, Australia ranked highest of all the countries surveyed. Only in the categories of motorcycle or bicycle theft, and pickpocketing did we fail to finish in the top half of the list. It is perhaps surprising, then, to find also that Australians appear to be very much happier with the efforts of their police forces than residents in most other countries in the survey. Almost eighty percent of victims of crime expressed satisfaction with the police response to their problem, and around three quarters of all respondents thought the police were doing a reasonable job controlling crime in their neighbourhood. This apparent paradox is not easily explained. There is evidence that some aspects of the Australian lifestyle may actually be responsible for our high crime rates. For example, we may make ourselves easy targets for burglars with our detached houses in big, impersonal cities. Both these features are found to be associated with high burglary rates. Likewise, it 2 can be thought that we make life easy for car thieves by driving to work leaving the car parked all day unattended. Ironically, however, those countries which choose public transport for their journeys to work have much higher rates of pickpocketing than we do. Different lifestyles give different opportunities to commit crime. Other features of Australian society appear to be associated with high risks of crime, but the in-depth analysis of the data needed to confirm these suspicions has not yet been completed. The report concludes, for example, that big city dwellers are over fifty percent more likely to be victimised than those who live in towns of under 10,000 people. Australia is, of course, Australian Institute of Criminology one of the most highly urbanised nations of all, and this single feature appears to explain most of the difference between the risk of crime in Australia and elsewhere. Other factors likely to adversely affect our risk of victimisation include our demography, our high living standards, and our high labour participation rates, especially for women. Most intriguing of all, however, is that the report shows that the risk of all major categories of crime clearly decreases the further a country is from the equator - possibly because a colder climate imposes an informal curfew on both offenders and potential victims alike, reducing the frequency with which people leave the comforts of home and reducing the opportunities for a range of criminal activities. In all these respects, Australia would probably stand out as a 'high risk' country. Despite the risks, Australians do not appear to be unduly fearful of violent crime, by international standards. Their most common fear was of being burgled, which, as the responses showed, was supported by the relatively high incidence of these crimes in Australia. There are some clear lessons in these comparisons, in the need for continued and improved crime prevention activities in Australia. But the figures should not necessarily be cause for alarm at our position vis-a- 3 Australian Institute of Criminology vis other countries - rather they should be used to identify the special needs of a country such as ours, in terms of crime prevention, policing and the criminal justice system in general. The Survey This is the first time an attempt has been made to conduct parallel surveys of crime in several countries. It fills a long-felt need for genuinely comparable estimates of crime and patterns of victimisation in different countries. Researchers have principally wanted to test theories about the social causes of crime by means of cross-national comparisons. Policy makers have principally wanted to understand better their national crime problems by putting these in an international perspective. Comparisons based on numbers of offences recorded by police have presented severe difficulties, not least of which are caused by differences in offence classifications, counting rules, and the frequencies with which offences are actually brought to the notice of police. Crime victim surveys, of one form or another, have been developed in many countries in recent years, as a means of estimating the 'true' level of crime, the extent and nature of offences which are never reported to police, and the distribution of risks across different sections of the community. This particular survey was first proposed to a meeting of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe in 1987,1 but the idea of extending it to other, non- European, countries was readily accepted by the coordinators of the survey. Eventually, Australia, through the support of the Australian Institute of Criminology and the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, joined Belgium, Canada, England and Wales, West Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland and the USA in the venture. (Local surveys were also 4 conducted in regions of Poland, Japan and Indonesia, but in each case the sample was not drawn from the whole population, and would therefore be unrepresentative.) Each survey was based on a sample of the population and, for cost reasons, was conducted by telephone. Both of these features may clearly limit the degree to which the survey responses adequately represent the actual level of crime in each country. Australian Institute of Criminology However, great care was taken to ensure that, as far as possible, fair comparisons between nations could be made from the results. The offences about which people were asked included : • thefts of cars, motor cycles and pushbikes • thefts from, and damage to, cars • burglary and attempted burglary • robbery • thefts of personal property • sexual assaults and offensive behaviour • other assaults and threats Respondents who had been victimised were asked for details of when, where and how the incident happened, its material consequences, whether the police were involved (and if not, why not), and satisfaction with the police response and any victim assistance given. Questions were also asked relating to fear of crime, general satisfaction with local policing, crime prevention behaviour, and attitudes to sentencing The Results in More Detail Crime in Australia, Compared to Other Countries Table 1 shows estimates of the percentages of the sampled population aged 16 or over in each country who had been victimised at least once during 1988. Australia is ranked third highest of the fourteen countries in terms of overall victimisation, behind the other two non-European countries, the USA and Canada. In assaults involving force, sexual incidents, burglary and motor vehicle thefts, Australia ranked highest of all countries surveyed. Only in such categories as motorcycle or bicycle theft, and pickpocketing did we fail to finish in the top half of the list. The risk of having a car stolen in 1988 was equal highest with France (2.3 per cent of respondents), even after taking Australia's high rate of car-ownership into account. During 1988 6.9 per cent of Australian respondents also said they had had things stolen from their cars during 1988 (e.g. luggage, radios, car mirrors etc.), and 8.7 per cent had their car damaged in some way. Burglary affected 4.4 per cent of Australian respondents during 1988 compared with 3.8 per cent in the USA and 3.0 per cent in Canada. European rates of burglary were only around half the Australian figure. These figures appear to be related to the percentage of detached or semidetached houses, which is very high (85 per cent) in Australia. Australia on 5 per cent ranked equal second with Spain for its frequency of personal thefts, with Canada (5.4 per cent) in the unenviable top-spot. These crimes consisted of thefts of personal items such as purses, jewellery or shopping while at work, school or in some public place. Interestingly, however, Australians were at very low risk of pickpocketing. Australia also had very high rates of sexual incidents, including sexual assaults, even when other factors, such as the high female labour participation rate and our high propensity to go out in the evenings, are taken into account. The researchers suggest that an additional factor may be differences in willingness to talk about such incidents. Issues such as sexual harassment have been the subject of heated debate in some countries in recent years, but are still taboo subjects in others. It is relevant to note that 80.1 per cent of all sexual incidents were for ‘offensive behaviour' (grabbing, touching) while 7.8 per cent were for rape or attempted rape and 11.3 per cent for indecent assault. Of all sexual incidents, 92.4 per cent were not reported to the police. Half the respondents who failed to report any sexual incident to the authorities said that they did not do so because the incident was not serious enough or because they would ‘solve it themselves'. The survey results also revealed that a much smaller proportion of incidents of a sexual nature are 5 described as actual ‘assaults' by Australian respondents in comparison with those surveyed in other countries. This result tends to support the view that sexual incidents are understated in other countries by current Australian standards. Our Reaction to Crime. Reporting Crime: At first sight these are frightening results. In several of these types of crime, in particular sexual incidents, Australia appears to have higher rates even than the USA. Previous analyses, based on police statistics of crime reported, have concluded that the general level of Australian crime is much lower than that of America, although higher than comparable European states. Table 2 helps to explain the phenomenon. In terms of the percentage of incidents reported to police, Australia ranks only twelfth out of the sixteen countries. Basically, this could be either because Australians have so little confidence in the police that they frequently prefer not to ask for their assistance, or because a large proportion of offences are of such a minor nature that they are not worth reporting. For example, around two thirds of incidents of assault were not reported to police, mostly because they were 'not serious enough', or the victims 'solved it themselves', or believed that it was 'inappropriate for police'. Fewer than 10 per cent of sexual incidents were reported to police in Australia less than average - and the reasons for non-reporting were largely similar to those for other assaults. Australians were not more likely than average to avoid reporting incidents because of fear or dislike of the police. Satisfaction with Police: Police in Australia actually appear to be more popular with the communities they serve than their counterparts overseas. All respondents who reported incidents to police in 1988 were asked whether they were satisfied with the way police dealt with their problem. Australia ranked first with almost 80 Australian Institute of Criminology per cent of respondents satisfied, compared with an average across all countries surveyed of around 66 per cent. In more general terms, Australian police also appeared to receive relatively high community support. All respondents, whether victims or not, were asked 'Taking everything into account, how good do you think the police in your area are at controlling crime. Do you think they are doing a good job or not?' Australia in this case ranked third behind Canada and the USA, still scoring over 70 per cent compared to an average of around 66 per cent. As in many of the countries polled, young people were the most likely to be critical of police. Crime Prevention Measures: Fear of crime induces people to take precautions including fitting burglar alarms, taking out insurance policies, or avoiding going out alone after dark. To provide information about fear of violent crime in public places, respondents were asked if they had to avoid certain areas after dark and if they go out with companions to avoid crime. Australia was quite close to average in these questions. As elsewhere, women and people who live in large cities were more likely to take precautions. The high incidence rates measured for violent crimes in Australia did not seem to translate into high levels of fear of violence. On the other hand, burglary in Australia does seem to worry people. A questions was asked 'What would you say are the chances that over the next twelve months someone will try to break into your home?' Forty four per cent of Australian respondents thought that this was 'likely' or 'very likely' - ranking third behind West Germany and Switzerland. Despite this, Australians are moderately, not exceptionally, high users of such precautions as burglar alarms, caretakers and insurance. The fact that Australia has a very high percentage of people living in large cities, and our preference for detached houses, which are comparatively easy targets for burglars, appears more than likely to explain both Australia's high rate of burglary and Australians' reactions to it. Attitudes to Sentencing: Respondents were asked which of five types of sentence they thought was most appropriate for 'a twenty-one year old man found guilty of burglary for the second time. This time he stole a colour TV'. Table 3 shows the principal results of this question. Contrary to conventional wisdom, imprisonment is not the public’s preferred sentence for a recidivist burglar, in Australia as in most other countries. Community service is seen as most appropriate by almost half of all respondents. Less than 10 per cent opted for a fine. Just over one in three Australian respondents would send the offender to prison. Comparison with actual imprisonment rates in these countries showed that public opinion in each country was broadly in line with actual sentences. Respondents from countries with high imprisonment rates tended to support prison as the best option. Whether this means that the courts in each country are 6 actually expressing the wishes of the public, or that the public is conditioned by its knowledge of what the courts actually do, is impossible to decide from this study. Who is at Risk As Table 4 shows, men are marginally more at risk than women, except in 'contact' crimes. Even here, however, men are more at risk of violence than are women, particularly of robbery. Because only women were asked about sexual incidents, women appear to be at greater overall risk than men. These results confirm the findings published in Violence: Directions for Australia (National Committee on Violence 1990). In addition, those aged 16-24 years were at least three times more at risk than those aged over 65 years. Because of Australia's post-war babyboom and high levels of immigration, we have a particularly high proportion of our population in this younger age group. The fact that so many of us crowd into large cities also Australian Institute of Criminology predisposes us to crime. Those living in towns of less than 50,000 people had lower risks of crime than those living in the capital cities. Those in cities of more than 50,000 people were over 50 per cent more likely to be victimised than those who live in towns of under 10,000 people. Employed people are more at risk than the unemployed. Women in the labour force were particularly at risk, however. Those in higher income groups were at greater risk than the less well-off. Opportunity is an important feature of criminal offending. Clearly, communities with high levels of vehicle ownership are more at risk of crimes involving theft of, or from, vehicles or damage to them. Vehicles left unattended in public places are particularly at risk, so Australia's high car-ownership and our tendency to use private cars for journeys to work, rather than public transport, probably combine to explain in part, at least, our high rates of motor vehicle theft. On the other hand, this tendency of ours to drive to work could help to explain our comparatively low rates of pickpocketing, since public transport offers considerable opportunities for such crimes. People who frequently go out at night for recreational purposes are more at risk, in all categories of offence. This could be because they were more exposed to crimes committed in public places, such as pubs or public transport, but also because they were more frequently leaving their cars and houses unattended. Our climate, which for most of the year gives us pleasant evenings and longer hours of daylight, is likely to be particularly culpable in this respect, increasing the range of opportunities for all manner of crimes. (See Table 5.) Australian respondents appear to be about 30 per cent more likely than, for example, the Dutch to go out in the evening. Most intriguing of all, however, is the discovery that countries with colder climates have lower levels of all types of crime than countries nearer the equator. The most significant statistical effects of this sort were found in burglary and sexual incidents, in which over half of the statistical variation between countries can be explained by the countries' distance from the equator. (See Figure 4.) The most likely explanation for this appears to be that cold or wet weather acts as an informal curfew, keeping both offenders and potential victims at home, thereby reducing the opportunities for crime. Most burglaries, for example, take place while the occupants are away. Most sexual incidents take place away from the victim's home. Summary and Conclusions Australia is a relatively high risk 7 country as far as crime is concerned as this cross-national survey indicates. Happily, we are not in the same league as the USA, but we do appear to have higher crime rates than most European countries. In terms of serious crimes, Australia does not differ substantially from most other countries surveyed. We do appear, however, to have higher rates of relatively minor incidents than most other countries. Our lifestyles appear to create opportunities which predispose us to much of this minor crime. Among the elements of the Australian way of life which determine how much crime we have to put up with are: Australian Institute of Criminology • we live in large impersonal cities, with few of the informal social safeguards which are available in smaller communities; we compound this by living in houses separated from our neighbours by large gardens which actually make a burglar's job easier; • we travel to work across the city by car, leaving behind us residential suburbs with little protection against opportunist burglars, and leaving our cars and their contents in public places all day at the mercy of joy-riders, vandals and professional thieves; • our long hours of daylight and pleasant evenings tempt us to enjoy outdoor recreational activities in public places, including pubs and sports clubs, again leaving the home with little protection other than perhaps the odd light left on, and subjecting ourselves to risk of all sorts of misfortunes. Many of the incidents that affect us are so minor that we do not bother to report them to the police. When we do call in the police we are generally satisfied with their efforts to assist us. This survey also confirms previous surveys conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology in finding that we are not exceptionally punitive in our attitudes to offenders. Although the recent growth in the private security industry, and the continuing spread of the Neighbourhood Watch concept, suggests that many Australians are adopting greater precautionary measures because of their concern about crime, we suspect that the majority will continue to live an outgoing lifestyle. Efforts to reduce the levels of violence through better education and family support and measures to reduce alcohol consumption, as proposed by the National Committee on Violence, clearly need to be maintained, however. At least, at this point in time, it does not appear that our fear of crime and the actual crime rate should fundamentally affect the way we live. There is a considerable amount of research still to be performed on the data derived from this survey, and it is likely that the results will shed even more light on the nature and extent of crime in Australia, compared with other countries. Note: This Trends and Issues summarises the results published in: Van Dijk J., Mayhew P., and Killias M. (1990) Experiences of Crime Across the World: Key Findings from the 1989 International Crime Survey, Kluwer, Deventer and Boston. Inquiries about the Trends and Issues series should be forwarded to: The Director Australian Institute of Criminology GPO Box 2944 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia 8 Copyright of Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice is the property of Australian Institute of Criminology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. 2001 CRIME TRENDS: A turning point? Martin Schönteich Institute for Security Studies Published in SA Crime Quarterly No 1, July 2002 Between 1997 and 2000 there was a steady increase in the annual number of recorded crimes. The first nine months of 2001 saw an end to this trend. During 2001 the rate of increase in recorded crime diminished markedly. Moreover, for the first time in years, violent crime increased at a lower rate than most other crime categories. Given these encouraging figures, is South Africa beginning to win the war against crime? While the latest numbers look promising, talk of a victory is premature. There has to be a sustained decline in the levels of most serious crimes to reduce the country’s crime levels to acceptable levels. At the time of writing, statistics reflecting crimes recorded by the South African Police Service (SAPS) have been released covering the period up to the end of September 2001. The most recent set of crime statistics, covering the July-September 2001 period, was released at the end of 2001. These third quarter figures for 2001 are significant as they are the first set of crime statistics collected by the police’s Crime Information Analysis Centre (CIAC), making use of a new but undisclosed methodology, whereby crime statistics are said to be collected in a more accurate manner. Readers will recall that a moratorium on the release of crime statistics was imposed by the late Safety and Security minister Steve Tshwete in July 2000, and only lifted almost a year later. The July-September 2001 figures were released as part of the statistics for the first three quarters of 2001. This does not allow for a comparison of only the third quarter 2001 figures with the same three-month period during previous years. Nevertheless, it would appear that the moratorium has not resulted in unexpected changes to crime figures. The available 2001 crime statistics do not contain any surprises or significant changes to long term trends in individual crimes. South Africa’s official crime statistics are widely regarded as comprehensive and certainly as the most detailed and reliable of all countries on the African continent. Statistics on the number of crimes recorded by the SAPS at national level right down to station level have been publicly available since 1994. A remarkable achievement, considering the history of policing in the country. Interpreting crime statistics When analysing the crime statistics that follow below, it is important to remember that recorded crime levels undercount the real levels of crime, as unrecorded crimes are not reflected. For crime to make it on to the official police records two things need to happen. Firstly, victims or witnesses must report it to the police. Secondly, the police must record the crime in their records. According to Statistics South Africa’s 1997 national Victims of Crime Survey, crimes involving valuable and insured property are mostly reported. For example, 95% of vehicle thefts, 60% of vehicle hijackings and 59% of burglaries are reported. Less serious property crimes and interpersonal violent crimes are more often not reported than reported. Thus, only 41% of robberies, 38% of assaults and 28% of theft of personal property are reported (see Improved crime reporting, in this issue, for comments about how reporting affects police crime statistics). National picture During the first nine months of 2001, 1 844 000 crimes were recorded by the SAPS; up from 1 464 000 over the same nine month period in 1994 (Figure 1). If the January-September period for 2001 is compared with that of 1994, the number of recorded crimes increased by 26%. Figure 1: Number of crimes recorded by the police, Jan-Sept 1994-2001 While the number of recorded crimes has increased since 1994, there has been little change in the relative proportions of the different crime categories. For example, in the period January-September 1994, violent crimes comprised 30.1% of all crimes recorded. During the January-September 2001 period this had increased to 32.5%. All other crime categories experienced a slight decline as a proportion of the overall number of recorded crimes. Property crimes make up the largest proportion of recorded crimes – approximately 55% of the total. Change over time While recorded crime increased between 2000 and 2001, the rate of increase is slowing down. If the first nine months of 1997 are compared with 1998, recorded crime increased by 4%. Thereafter, recorded crime increased by 7% (1998/99) and 8% (1999/00). The January-September 2001 period experienced a 2% increase compared to the same period in 2000 – the lowest year-on-year increase since 1996/97 (Figure 2). Figure 2: % change in number of crimes recorded, Jan-Sept 1994-2001 While the figures indicate a slowing down in the rate of increase of recorded crime in 2000/01, it needs to be remembered that this is occurring at a point where recorded levels of violent crime are extraordinarily high. The time period is too short, moreover, to draw a firm conclusion whether the trend will continue to the extent that recorded crime levels will enter a sustained period of decline. In the January-September period between 1994 and 2001 the number of recorded violent crimes increased by 36%, more than any other crime category (Figure 3). Figure 3: % change in the number of crimes recorded, Jan-Sept 1994-01 and 200-01 However, between 2000 and 2001 (again, for the period January-September) violent crime increased by 2%. Both the number of property crimes and violent crimes against property such as arson and malicious injury to property, increased to a greater extent (3%). Drunk driving offences, and drug and firearm related offences – categorised as ‘other’ also increased by 3%, while commercial crimes (primarily fraud) decreased by 10%. Not all crimes increased or decreased at the same rate for the January-September period between 2000 and 2001. Robbery with aggravating circumstances and common robbery experienced the greatest increase of 10% and 7% respectively (Figure 4). Robberies with aggravating circumstances are robberies involving a dangerous weapon, including bank robberies, cash-in-transit heists and vehicle hijackings. Common robberies involve mainly muggings, as well as the snatching of handbags, jewellery and cell phones. Figure 4: % change in selected crimes recorded, Jan-Sept 2000-2001 Recorded murders decreased by 3%. This is a continuation of a trend whereby the yearly number of murders has been declining since 1994. Disconcertingly, however, recorded attempted murders are up by 5%. Assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm (assault GBH) decreased by 2% and car theft by 1%. Encouragingly, vehicle hijackings – a crime that instills a high level of fear amongst the public – did not increase over this period. Violent crime in the provinces Measured on a per capita basis, the violent crime rate for the January-September 2001 period is highest in the Northern Cape. In that province 2 151 violent crimes were recorded for every 100 000 people resident (Figure 5). In other words, the average resident of the Northern Cape stood a 2.15% chance of becoming a victim of a recorded violent crime during the first nine months of 2001. By comparison, the average South African faced a 1.3% chance of becoming a violent crime victim. Figure 5: Violent crime rate in the provinces, Jan-Sept 2001 Recorded violent crime is spread unevenly over the country’s nine provinces. Residents of the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Gauteng, for example, were more than two-and-a-half times as likely to become a victim of a recorded violent crime during the first nine months of 2001 than Limpopo residents. However, this provincial disparity might slowly be changing. While the violent crime rate was lowest in Limpopo, the province experienced the greatest increase (6%) in the rate of recorded violent crime during January-September 2001, compared to the same period in 2000 (Figure 6). Mpumalanga, another province with a low violent crime rate, was the only other province that experienced an increase (1%) in the rate of recorded violent crime over the abovementioned period. Figure 6: % change in violent crime rate, Jan-Sept 200-2001 The Eastern Cape recorded a 3% decrease in its violent crime rate, followed by the Northern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal (all 2%). Violence in the Western Cape Contrary to popular belief, the per capita rate of violent crime has since 1994 been consistently higher in the Western Cape than in Gauteng. That is, since 1994 the average resident of the Western Cape has been at greater risk of becoming a victim of a recorded violent crime than the average Gauteng resident (Figure 7). Figure 7: Violent crime rate in Western Cape and Gauteng, Jan-Sept 1994-2001 The changing levels of the violent crime rate in the Western Cape between 1994 and 2001, JanuarySeptember period, are closely paralleled with those in Gauteng and the country as a whole. The late 1990s experienced a significant increase in violent crime rates in all three geographical areas, followed by a stabilisation or decline in the 2000/2001 period. While national murder and attempted murder rates have declined since 1994, the opposite has been the case in the Western Cape. For the period January-September 1994 the Western Cape had lower rates of murder and attempted murder than the country as a whole (Figure 8). Figure 8: Murder and attempted murder rate in South Africa and Western Cape, Jan-Sept 1994-2001 However, in 2001 (January-September) the Western Cape’s murder rate was 67% above the national average, while the province’s attempted murder rate was 38% higher than the national average. The Western Cape has experienced a significant increase in the rate of robberies with aggravating circumstances. During January-September 1994 the Western Cape’s rate of aggravated robberies was 24% lower than the national average. In 2000 the province’s aggravated robbery rate was roughly the same as that of the country as a whole. In 2001, the aggravated robbery rate in the Western Cape was 16% higher than in the country as a whole (Figure 9). Figure 9: Aggravated robbery rate in South Africa and Western Cape, Jan-Sept 1994-2001 Similarly, the recorded vehicle hijacking rate in the Western Cape has more than doubled between 1994 and 2001, January-September, from six incidents per 100 000 residents to 13 incidents. Nationally, vehicle hijacking rates are higher but much more stable. The national vehicle hijacking rate increased marginally between 1994 and 2001, from 24 to 25 incidents per 100 000 of the population. Conclusion The recorded crime figures for the first three quarters of 2001 contain good news. Recorded crime is increasing at its lowest rate in years. When measured on a per capita basis violent crime – long a trademark of crime in South Africa – decreased between 2000 and 2001. While the country needs good news about crime, South Africans should not be fooled into believing that the country is about to enter an era of low crime levels. The first nine months of 2001 witnessed an average of 55 murders, 137 rapes, 558 robberies and 1 350 assaults a day – and that is before unrecorded crime is taken into account. Clearly crime levels have to actually decrease – and decrease for sustained periods of time – before the country reaches acceptable levels of crime. Moreover, levels of serious violent crime in the Western Cape are showing disturbing trends. Source documents All statistics in the graphs are provided by the SAPS CIAC, see www.saps.gov.za Copyright of SA Crime Quarterly is the property of Institute for Security Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Victims & Offenders, 10:420–451, 2015 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1556-4886 print/1556-4991 online DOI: 10.1080/15564886.2015.1078186 International Trends in Prison Upsizing and Downsizing: In Search of Evidence of a Global Rehabilitation Revolution James M. Byrne School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA April Pattavina School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA; Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA Faye S. Taxman George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Abstract: Our review of global trends in the use of incarceration reveals that both the number of people incarcerated worldwide and the global rate of incarceration continue to increase in every global region. In addition, there have been sizable global increases in the use of pretrial detention, the proportion of female prisoners, the proportion of foreign prisoners, prison privatization, and prison crowding. After reviewing these global trends, we examine the available data on correctional performance, focusing on global crime trends in the subgroup of countries (n = 20) where three-quarters of the world’s prison population is currently located. While most (17/20) of these countries continued to increase their prison population despite decreases in most crime categories, three countries—the Russian Federation, South Africa, and Pakistan—have reduced their reliance on incarceration (number and rate) while also reducing their crime rates. Compared to other countries with large prison populations, the United States’ overall increase in both the prison population (+14.4% since 2000) and incarceration rate (+2.2) can be described as modest. Our review of global trends in corrections and sentencing policy reforms revealed an emerging focus on offender rehabilitation Address correspondence to James M. Byrne, School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 1 University Ave, Lowell, MA 01854. E-mail: profbyrne7@gmail.com Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www. tandfonline.com/uvao. 420 International Trends in Prison Upsizing and Downsizing in both prison and community corrections settings and a growing recognition of the link between community development and crime. Focusing on the potential impact of rehabilitation-rich policy reforms in the United States, we highlight the results of a recent simulation modeling study (Taxman & Pattavina, 2013) designed to estimate the impact of expanding our institutional corrections treatment infrastructure. This study reported significant, but relatively small, long-term reductions in prison populations when treatment capacity and treatment quality are increased. These findings suggest that even major improvement in the quantity and quality of prison programming—by itself—will not fundamentally change the life course of prisoners, resulting in continued high return-to-prison rates for these offenders. We conclude that for the United States to significantly reduce its reliance on incarceration, we will need to rethink our approach to crime and punishment. Our global review of corrections and sentencing strategies identified a number of possibilities. Using the global incarceration rate and the global crime rate as benchmark performance “tipping points,” we call for the development of corrections and sentencing policies—and the hiring of corrections personnel—based on the new goal of corrections: individual and community rehabilitation. Keywords: correctional rehabilitation policy, international corrections, prison downsizing, To gain a better understanding of the nature and extent of crime, criminologists have studied global crime patterns using country-level data as the unit of analysis. This body of research has identified a set of factors (e.g., income inequality, poverty/economic development) that distinguish high-crime from low-crime countries, and leaders in several countries have designed crime reduction initiatives utilizing this information (Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 2014; United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2014). A similar effort is now underway to understand the global response to crime, focusing on the utilization of prison and alternatives to incarceration (Allen, 2015; Walmsley, 2015). While every country’s crime problem—and each country’s criminal justice response—is unique, there is value in the examination of global variations in corrections and sentencing practices and attempts to identify (and rank) both high-performance and lowperformance countries, based on the evidence of the effectiveness of their corrections systems and sentencing strategies. Unfortunately, the global performance measurement data base needed to systematically review and rank the performance of countries’ corrections and sentencing strategies does not currently exist, but it is possible—due largely to the work of Walmsley (2015) and Allen (2015)—to provide a global snapshot of recent corrections and sentencing trends and developments1 and to review the available country-specific evaluation research on the effectiveness of these strategies (Byrne, 2016, 2015). The following review highlights recent global trends in the use of prison internationally (2000 to 2015) and then examines the changes in prison populations in the subgroup of countries (20) that currently house over 75% of 421 422 J. M. Byrne et al. the world’s prison population.2 Seventeen of these 20 countries increased their prison populations between 2000 and 2015. Prison populations have continued to rise globally at a rate slightly higher than world population growth during this period; at the same time, declines have been reported in every major crime category (except drugs). There are exceptions to the global upsizing trends identified here. Three of the 20 countries with the largest prison populations— the Russian Federation, South Africa, and Pakistan—reported declines in their prison populations, with the Russian Federation’s prison population decline particularly noteworthy (a 37% reduction in the total prison population between 2000 and 2015). While a detailed review of the reasons for the Russian Federation’s prison decline was beyond the scope of our review,3 we have identified the most commonly used prison downsizing strategies globally. Strategies designed to reduce the rate of incarceration include new sentencing legislation (e.g., federal and state sentencing guideline reform), the expansion of alternative sanctions, and a renewed focus on offender treatment in both prisons and community corrections. Evidence to support these strategic initiatives can be found in several recent systematic evidence-based reviews (Byrne, 2016, 2015). Using the results of a recent simulation modeling study conducted in the United States (Taxman & Pattavina, 2013), we consider the potential impact of policy reforms designed to simultaneously downsize prisons and upsize the treatment infrastructure of our institutional and community corrections system in the United States. These analyses reveal that while long-term reductions in prison populations are possible, only incremental changes in our prison population are likely unless we consider the need for fundamental (some might say revolutionary) changes in policies, programs, and personnel. The following three recommendations are offered for consideration: 1. New corrections and sentencing policies that result in rates of incarceration at or below the average global incarceration rate. 2. A new commitment to the provision of high-quality treatment programs in the institutional and community corrections system. 3. The recruitment, training, and retention of a new generation of corrections personnel with skills in counseling, mentoring, and advocacy similar to corrections personnel in countries with a pronounced rehabilitation orientation (e.g., Australia, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom). Changes in each of these areas will require a new commitment to an old strategy: rehabilitation at the individual and community level. International Trends in Prison Upsizing and Downsizing GLOBAL PRISON POPULATION TRENDS: UPSIZING VERSUS DOWNSIZING It is estimated by the International Center for Prison Studies (ICPS) that there are currently over 10.2 million prisoners living in prisons around the world today, and if the reports on the number of offenders in pretrial or administrative detention in China and North Korea are accurate, the world prison population total is actually over 11 million (see the 2013 population estimate included in the World Population List by Walmsley, 2015). Based on data compiled by ICPS on current prison populations, we have examined the prison population data for the countries with the 20 highest prison populations globally. Seventy-five percent of the world’s prisoners (7,689,884) reside in these 20 countries, including 8 countries from Asia, 5 from the Americas, 4 from Europe, and 3 from Africa. Table 1 presents changes in the prison populations in these 20 countries since 2000. In 17 of 20 countries, the prison population has increased at a rate slightly greater than the rate of increase in the world’s population. According to the recent review by Walmsley, “Prison populations are growing in all five continents. In the 15 years since the first edition of the World Population List the estimated world prison population has increased by some 20% to 25% but at the same time the world population has risen by over 20%. The world’s prison population rate has risen by about 6% from 136 per 100,000 of the world population to the current rate of 144 [per 100,000]” (2015, p. 1). Despite the calls for reform and for the downsizing of our global prison population (see, e.g., Allen, 2015; Cullen, 2013), correctional populations continue to be upsized in every global region. When examining recent trends in our global prison population, it is worth considering the fact that almost half of the world’s prison population is held in only three countries: the United States, China, and the Russian Federation. About 20% of the world population currently resides in these three countries. Two of these countries (United States, China) have continued to increase their prison/pretrial detention populations—and their incarceration rate— since 2000. By contrast, the Russian Federation has significantly decreased both the number of prisoners and the rate of incarceration without increased reported crime rates. Some observers will be quick to dismiss these findings for the Russian Federation with glib reference to potential bad data, while pointing to the notable, documented deficiencies in prison conditions and prison labor in the Russian Federation (Amesty International, 2015; Moran, Pallot, & Piacentini, 2011; U.S. Department of State, 2013). However, there certainly appears to be significant prison downsizing movement in the Russian Federation, and further investigation is needed on whether—and if so, how—this large-scale downsizing strategy was accomplished. 423 424 United States of America (2013) China (2014) Russian Federation Brazil (2014) India (2013) Thailand Mexico Iran (2014) Indonesia (2014) Turkey South Africa Vietnam (2014) Colombia Philippines (2013) Ethiopia (2011) United Kingdom: England and Wales Poland Pakistan (2012 data) Peru Morocco (2013 data) Title Europe Asia South America Africa Asia Europe South America Asia Asia Central America Asia Asia Europe Africa Asia South America Asia Africa Europe Northern America Region 198 (68) 41 (206) 236 (53) 221 (60) 119 (123) 463 (9) 301 (34) 33 (212) 452 (10) 214 (64) 290 (36) 179 (66) 212 (65) 292 (35) 154 (94) 242 (50) 113 (131) 111 (134) 148 (99) 698 (2) 76,145 74,944 73,255 72,816 1,657,812 667,546 607,730 411,992 304,916 256,941 225,624 167,163 165,033 159,241 142,636 119,378 110,925 93,044 85,743 2,217,000 2015 Prison Pop 70,544 78,938 27,734 54,288 1,427,407 1,060,404 232,755 272,079 223,406 154,765 158,000∗∗ 53,399 49,512 171,462 88,414∗∗∗ 51,518 79,299 55,209 64,602 1,937,482 2000 PP % Change +14.4% +16.1% −37.0% +161.1% +51.4% +36.5% +66.0 +42.8% +213.1% +233.3% −7.1% +61.3% +131.7% +39.9% +68.5% +32.7% +7.9% −5.1% +164.1% +34.1% PP Change +279,518 +230, 405 −392,858 +374,975 +139,913 +81,510 +102,176 +67,624 +113,764 +115,521 −12,221 +54,222 +67,860 +31,626 +37,835 +21,141 +5,601 −3,994 +45,521 +18,528 ∗ 2015 data unless noted above; includes pretrial detention population. For details, go to http://www.prisonstudies.org/world-prison-brief. Data included above retrieved July 14, 2015. ∗∗ 2001 data. ∗∗∗ 2005 data....
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COMPARATIVE STUDY
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COMPARATIVE STUDY
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COMPARISION OF CRIME RATES
COUNTRY
CRIME INDEX
South Africa
United States
Australia
United Kingdom
Japan

77,49
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41,39
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America does not have a higher crime rate than other countries.
The U.S has an average rate of crime compared to countries like south Africa.
Crime's like homicide and murder occur because many people in the U.S own guns.
I believe that America as a country simply has more motivated criminals because of biases such as racism.
America has a high standard of living as compared to other countries and therefore this does not necessarily put them
Victim compensation in U.S works by repaying victims of crimes for only crime related expenses.
Compensation is given in terms of medical expenses, councelling and theraphy, burial costs e.t.c

PARISION OF CRIME RATE CRIME RATES

United States

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ch as racism.
ot necessarily put them at risk for crime.
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OUTLINE FOR COMPARATIVE STUDY

Differentiate between criminology and victimology.
✓ Criminology investigates the motives and reasons as to why criminals commit a crime.
It encompasses the cause and triggers for committing crimes.
✓ Victimology, on the other hand, looks at the victims of crimes. Victimology is
encompassed in criminology and seeks to look at the relationship between the Victim
and the criminal and how the Victim suffers as a result of the crime.

Explain at least three different theories on victimization. Give the strengths and
weaknesses of each theory that you choose.
✓ Deviant Place Theory.
✓ Victim Precipitat...


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