Sean Butler
4/4/16
Professor Stringer
Criminal Justice System How Crime is good for Society Ever since the first use of national crime statistics came out in 1934, there have only been 16 years where the crime rate declined, eight of those years being after 1992. So basically, crime is all around us, all the time. Interestingly though, the evidence shows that,” our most sustained drop in crime, neatly coincides with the longest economic expansion in U.S. history has led some experts to insist there's a connection between the two.” (Leher, Eli.) That’s contradictive of beliefs though, at first you would think crime rates should drop and fall regarding the countries economics. After looking at the data though, there’s little evidence to suggest that good economic times have an effect on the crime rates. Crime is good for society because it determines the economic trend, how crime benefits the economy, it sets boundaries on what is right and wrong, and the philosophers and their views on crime. Between the years of 1955-1972, as the US economy flourished, with a mild recession in the beginning of the 1960s. By the time they reached the 1970s, “crime rates had increased over 140 percent. Murder rates had risen about 70 percent, rapes more than doubled, and auto theft nearly tripled.” (Leher, Eli.) A bad economy doesn’t necessarily indicate more crime though, “Crime rates fell about one third between 1934 and 1938 while the nation was struggling to emerge from the Great Depression and weathering another severe economic downturn in 1937 and 1938.” (Leher, Eli.) By looking at this, crime rates should’ve went through the roof with the economy being so bad, but they didn’t. So after all of that, experts say that economic barometers such as the unemployment rate, are not very useful to predict crime rates. This doesn’t stop some people from trying to link the two