Macroeconomic and Social-Control Policy Influences on Crime Rate Changes, 1948-1985

Violent Crime in the United States of America: A Time-Series Analysis Between 1960–2000

“…I found that a 10 percent increase in the prison population is associated with 6.2 and 6.5 percent fewer murders and rapes, respectively. My estimates are less than half of those obtained by previous national-level studies including those by Devine et al (1988) and Marvell and Moody (1997), but are almost four times higher than those found by Levitt (1996) in a state-level study. The only exception is for assault and hence, for overall violent crime where I found a smaller elasticity but which was close to those reported by both national and state-level studies.…”

“…Economic and social factors that influence the short-run behaviour of violent crime do not determine it in the long-run. Second, the estimated short-run elasticities of imprisonment are substantially smaller than those obtained by Marvell and Moody (1997) and Devine et al (1988). Third, my evidence is consistent with previous studies which suggest that unemployment plays a marginal role in violent crime (e.g.…”

“…The effects of prison population on violent crimes are substantially smaller than those produced by Devine et al (1988) and Marvell and Moody (1997), and are closer to Levitt's (1996). Economic conditions are found to have a marginal role in violent crime rates with the exception of murder, where it was found to be strongly associated with income inequality.…”

“…There is considerable disagreement between national and state-level studies as to the extent that changes in imprisonment alter the violent crime rates. Two national-level econometric studies including those by Devine et al (1988) and Marvell and Moody (1997), found a high negative response of the increase in imprisonment on both homicide and robbery. 4 Using a state-level approach, however, Levitt (1996) found that for the offences of homicide and robbery, elasticities were approximately ten times and four times smaller respectively than those reported in the national-level studies.…”

Experimenting with a Nonlinear Dynamic Model of Juvenile Criminal Behavior

“…The main argument is that with a dynamic model the logic of a theory can be made more transparent. Moreover, because our model assumes that crime can be explained by a rational choice between profits and costs (Devine, Sheley, Smith, & Dwayne, 1988;Wiese, 1994) and youth can learn from the difference between expected profits and costs of crime on one hand and observed profits and costs on the other hand, it can be a base for ideas of intervention in which learning plays an important role. With those ideas policy makers can perhaps shape learning environments in which early and smart prevention of crime is possible.…”