THE INFLUENCE OF CRACK COCAINE ON ROBBERY, BURGLARY, AND HOMICIDE RATES - A CROSS-CITY, LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS

After tracking one another closely for decades, the U.S. robbery rate increased and the burglary rate declined in the late 1980s. The author s investigate the impact of crack on this divergence using a two-stage hierarchical linear model that decomposes between- and within-city va riation in crime rates for 142 cities. Given its prominence in discuss ions of crack and criminal violence, homicide offending is also examin ed Net of other influences, cities with higher levels of crack use exp erienced larger increases in robbery and decreases in burglary. Cities with greater levels of crack had higher homicide rates but did not sh ow more rapid increases in these rates than other cities. The results suggest that the emergence and proliferation of crack shifted the bala nce of urban offending opportunities and rewards from burglary to robb ery.