Impact of Foreclosures on Crime

[Sergeant T]

The Impact of Single-Family Mortgage Foreclosures on Neighborhood Crime.

Link shamlessly copied from John Robb's site, who seems to always go all Forth Turning with every new data set. The paper is limited but worth a quick read. Having sat through the classes and worked the street, I think it's a 'chicken & egg' arguement. Criminals have all the time and numbers to shape their environment into whatever they want within governement tolerances. I also tend to get queasy when someone offers up an equation in a study to help explain the problem, but I know economists can't help themselves when it comes to equations.

[davidbfpo]

My experience in the UK, in an urban area blighted by the collapse of its manufacturing sector was that unemployment rose (approx. 30% for adult males and higher for youth). Private home ownership was relatively low, local authority and private landlords dominated.

Violent crime did not rise, nor anti-social behaviour, but dishonesty in all fields did. Instead of stolen goods being sold to handlers or "fences", goods could be sold in door to door sales and orders even taken before the theft. Local stores, especially those selling alcohol, tobacco, chemists, electrical goods and clothes were hit repeatedly. As the local barricades, crime prevention measures went up organised raiding went further afield. Oh yes vehicle crime went up.

"Sink" estates, not always publically owned, detiorated.

Today the same area has adult unemployment less than 5% (although the definition has changed so much it is meaningless) and youth unemployment or not in training is a staggering 38%. Massive public spending on housing improvements, smaller amounts on education and training. Some manufacturing has survived, but there has not been a single private sector investment.

Violent crime is up, often attributed to drug dealing; anti-social behaviour is persistent in the "sink" estates, dishonesty has shrunk and local shops can survive.

Anyway just a viewpoint from over the Atlantic and I'm not an economist.

davidbfpo

[Jedburgh]

Geography & Public Safety, Oct 08: Foreclosures and Crime: A Geographical Perspective

This third issue of Geography and Public Safety examines how the nationwide home foreclosure crisis has affected crime, police practice, and public policy. Articles show that geographic information systems can assess how foreclosures influence crime trends and improve city cleanup of graffiti and blight. Additionally, the issue describes the tenets of the broken windows policing theory, and how this theory explains why police and public planners must react quickly, before crime has a chance to escalate

[slapout9]

Outstanding...Thanks for posting.

[Bill Moore]

Interesting post, and I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg of bad things to come if we don't stabilize our economy. While I agree with the parallels to the broken glass theory, I think there is more to it. First, the social-economic-political system that these folks bought into failed them, so they are vulnerable to being recruited by gangs and other criminal elements. Far fetched? You may recall that several senior citizens have been (and may still be) involved in transporting illegal drugs due to personal economic duress, and this was before the current crisis. You now have a vulnerable and angry population that can be mobilized by an equally angry politician (a Hitler double). It is more than broken glass equaling an increase in punks on the streets, it is the failure of a system and folks looking for viable alternatives. I see many parallels to insurgency issues.

[slapout9]

Interesting post, and I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg of bad things to come if we don't stabilize our economy. While I agree with the parallels to the broken glass theory, I think there is more to it. First, the social-economic-political system that these folks bought into failed them, so they are vulnerable to being recruited by gangs and other criminal elements. Far fetched? You may recall that several senior citizens have been (and may still be) involved in transporting illegal drugs due to personal economic duress, and this was before the current crisis. You now have a vulnerable and angry population that can be mobilized by an equally angry politician (a Hitler double). It is more than broken glass equaling an increase in punks on the streets, it is the failure of a system and folks looking for viable alternatives. I see many parallels to insurgency issues.

Bill, I don't think that is far fetched at all. Nobody is talking much about the criminal effects a recession/depression will/would have. But they will soon if things don't straighten up.

[jmm99]

Hi folks,

Currently, there are at least three recents threads here (SWC) on the "financial crisis", including this one. The other two are:

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=6089

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=4283

By now, almost everyone realizes we have a problem - and governments worldwide are reacting. The problem is that reactive tactics may end up being more deadly than the problem itself. E.g., how do you react to an ambush ? We have had no training for this kind of ambush.

By way of general background, a source to linked articles, by those who have been predicting this mess, can be found here "The Depression Reader":

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/recession-reader.html

Kind of telling that the title refers to a "depression" and the url refers to a "recession". Truth is, at present, we simply do not know.

The particular problem here (in this thread) is a dangerous one because we do not know how our population will react today - as opposed to in the 1930's. IIRC, while foreclosures were a problem then (various foreclosure moratoria acts were passed), the overall crime rate did not increase that much - Bonny and Clyde aside. Slap, you may have some stats on that which are more precise; and I will not be bothered that my recollection is wrong.

My point is that the US people in the 1930's were not used to government "safety nets" and, frankly, were used to a lot more privation than my generation which grew up in the 1950's. Just about a mile from here is Quincy Hill (a mining location, which shut down in the 1930's). The people up there had their backs to the wall. So, what did they do (help from Welfare and WPA was not enough) ? They got together and shared their resources (a pig from one, veggies from others, and shine from them with stills). Not a very sophisticated bunch, those folks from Quincy Hill; but they survived.

Whether it will get that bad, I do not know. If it does, we will be into John Robb territory, where he has just posted:

Monday, 13 October 2008
GG RADAR: Early October 2008
Interesting mind food:
.....
Defensive strategies for communities: slow foreclosures/evictions. Chicago has a watered down version of this. Phili is in the lead. The key factor: drive as deep a wedge between the dysfunctional global economy and your community as possible. Keep people in their homes as long as possible. If you don't, you risk hollowing out your community. ....

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/

This ties in with Robb's theory of "resilient communities" as an answer to many problems.

There is another "foreclosure" that is of larger concern - and that is the amount of US government paper that is out there. That ranges from a dollar bill (a Federal Reserve Note), through the range of various Treasury instruments up to 30-year bonds. Now, some of my friends at LewRockwell call this "fiat money" (not backed by gold, etc.); but it is really not. In practical effect, it is backed by the present and future income stream and the present and future assets of the US (not only those owned by the government, but those owned by you and me). That is another, less tangible danger.

Besides the one trillion or so that the US will inject into the system, France and Germany will inject another trillion or so; UK has already moved in that direction; and Iceland is bankrupt - that from the AM news before I got here. So, there will be lots of government paper hanging out there.

PS - Slap. Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute have offices in Auburn, Alabama. Should that affect my judgment of them ?