SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND PROPERTY CRIME - A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW AND TEST OF THE PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE

A comprehensive review of the crime literature indicates varying and o ften opposing hypotheses of relationships between property crime and s ocioeconomic conditions such as poverty, business cycle conditions, de mographics, criminal justice system actions, and family structure. Emp loying measures of each of the hypothesized factors, time-series model s for robbery, burglary; and vehicle theft are estimated from yearly a nd national Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data for the period 1959 throug h 1992 and are used to test these hypotheses' current empirical releva nce. The empirical findings selectively confirm the importance of macr oeconomic stability and criminal justice system actions in reducing pr operty crime activity. In contrast, decreases in absolute poverty and general income inequality are associated with increased criminal activ ity; and age demographics and family/community structure apparently ha ve little impact on any of the analyzed property-crime trends. A reduc tion in inflation apparently decreases property crimes.