When the economy goes down does crime go up?

That seems a reasonable expectation. Hard times might well generate more crime while cities struggle to keep enough cops on the street. The unhappy scenario has city officials pouring over 2008 crime numbers as year-end reports from across the country come rolling in.

The economy has been in recession for about a year now, but, so far, there's no clear pattern on crime. Homicides were up in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Pittsburgh last year, but down in Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Miami.

Crime as a whole was down significantly in Minneapolis but up slightly in St. Paul. Go figure.

Recent recessions associated with crime
Although crime rates actually fell during the Great Depression, criminologists say that the trend is now the opposite. "Every recession since the late '50s has been associated with an increase in crime and, in particular, property crime and robbery, which would be most responsive to changes in economic conditions," Richard Rosenfeld, a sociologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told the New York Times. Typically, he said, there's a year's lag before a crime increase begins to show.

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said he expects more "service calls" in 2009 even as his department struggles against extraordinary cuts in state aid. Given the situation, Dolan and Mayor R.T. Rybak are wary about excessively celebrating last year's good news.

Violent crime was down 13 percent in Minneapolis in 2008, and down 24 percent over the last two years. Violent crime fell in every corner of the city last year — especially in Northeast and North Side precincts and in downtown, where joint "Safe Zone" operations that include Hennepin County, Transit Police, private security guards and outreach workers have made big inroads, not only against crime but against the "hassle factor" on downtown sidewalks.

"It has been a big success," said Rybak. Uniformed security "ambassadors" will be soon added, he said, as part of downtown's new "cleaner, greener and safer" initiative, launched by private partners.

Focusing on intervening with juveniles
The key to progress has been zeroing in on juvenile offenders. Three years ago, kids committed 55 percent of all violent crimes in the city. Last year they accounted for only 20 percent.

"Upstream efforts made the downstream more effective," said Rybak, meaning that prospective interventions — cops in schools, tougher truancy efforts and the closing of key corner stores and other hangouts — lessened the opportunity for juvenile crime to gather momentum. In 2006, 15 corner stores, many of them on the North Side, generated 2,500 police calls, Rybak said. Last year, the calls numbered fewer than 100.

The city's 900 vacant and boarded houses — most of them on the North Side and nearly all of them part of the foreclosure epidemic — have not been a factor in criminal activity, Dolan said. But he added, "Filling those homes will be very important for our city and for crime management."

What happens now, as budget cuts take a big bite, is of great concern. "A lot depends on how we manage cuts from the state," Dolan said.

Broader challenge than keeping cops on the street
"Public safety will be affected," Rybak said, "but it's still our top priority." He noted that keeping cops on the street (the city has a force of 900, up slightly from recent years) is only part of the challenge. Keeping prosecutors on the job and court cases moving will be a huge factor.

St. Paul has not yet released its 2008 crime statistics. Bob Hume, spokesman for Mayor Chris Coleman, said that the numbers were up last year but that the final report won't be compiled until after a best-practices assessment is released today. The city has been conducting an audit of its department to more closely pinpoint which crime-fighting tactics work best.

While St. Paul's crime numbers may have risen last year, the city remains more than twice as safe as Minneapolis. Using FBI numbers from 2007, CQ Press calculated the number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 385 U.S. cities to arrive at a violent crime index.

Minneapolis ranked 20th on the most-dangerous list, with a score of 200.18. St. Paul ranked 113th, with a score of 70.58.

Twin Cities' peers
Among major cities, St. Paul's violent crime rates were similar to those of Boston and San Francisco. Minneapolis' rate was only half of that of New Orleans or Detroit. But its peers were Washington and Philadelphia. (See chart below.)

There's some evidence that crime may continue to drop — or may avoid a huge spike — even as the economy worsens. Detroit's murder rate fell an astonishing 40 percent last year, for example, despite a terrible economy. Likewise, Los Angeles has held the line against crime despite a very difficult fiscal period.

One possible reason is smarter police methods. It's now standard for city police forces to clamp down on minor crimes (loitering, jay-walking) as a way of preventing bigger crimes, because studies show that the same people commit both types. Police have also stepped up gun searches and used computerized maps to anticipate locations where crimes are most likely to occur. And police chiefs had held precinct commanders accountable for crime trends in their neighborhoods.

"We live, eat and breathe reducing crime; we think about it all the time," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told the Wave Newspapers. Bratton pioneered proactive policing methods in New York two decades ago.

So, when the economy goes down does crime go up?

The answer is "maybe." But there are other complex contributors, including gang activity, neighborhood culture, age of the population and whether certain criminals are in prison at a particular time. Research has shown that even abortion rates may affect the numbers of disadvantaged teens available to commit crimes.

As sociologist James Q. Wilson concluded recently in the Los Angeles Times: "All of these imponderables make it difficult to fully understand why crime rates rise and fall."

Source: CQ Press