Crime drop in Ghana? Some insights from crime patterns and trends

This study examines crime rate trends in Ghana in the context of research into the international crime drop. Ghanaian police-recorded crime data are imperfect, but crime rates appear to have increased to the early 2000s then to have declined significantly. However, the national trend for all crime types masks significant variation by crime type and region. The national trends appear, broadly speaking, consistent with long-term crime increases and decreases in high-income countries, but with a lag that may reflect Ghana’s economic development trajectory. This may be consistent with the routine activity perspective if both crime opportunities and economic development increased in parallel, followed by a crime decline that reflected increased security measures or other change. The study raises many questions that require further research, and some suggestions to that end are outlined.

The influence of changing reward of electronic consumer goods on burglary and theft offences in Western market-based countries in the years prior to and during the crime drop

It is widely recognised that burglary and theft offence trends have broadly moved in parallel in ‘Western’ market-based countries since the 1950s. Most researchers have focussed on the trend from the early 1990s onwards, when burglary and theft offence rates plummeted. One major proposed explanation for this trend, relates to improved security. This paper draws on the longitudinal variations in reward of electronic consumer goods to propose a complementary account. This argument is supported by criminological theory, empirical evidence, and historical trends of specific property crime offences. The paper concludes by explaining that reward and security operate in partnership to influence the opportunity for crime, which provides an optimal account for burglary and theft offence trends over the last 40 years.

Nuorisorikollisuuden esiintyvyys ja tekomäärät Suomessa 1995-2020

Yksi kriminologian keskeisistä havainnoista viime vuosikymmeninä on ollut useiden perinteisten rikoslajien määrän melko systemaattinen väheneminen. Tutkimuskirjallisuudessa puhutaankin niin sanotusta ”crime drop” -ilmiöstä. Samaa kehitystä on havaittu myös suomalaisessa nuorisorikollisuudessa. Aiemman suomalaisen tutkimuksen mukaan nuoret tekevät ja kokevat historiallisen vähän rikoksia. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastelemme Kriminologian ja oikeuspolitiikan instituutin keräämien Nuorisorikollisuuskyselyiden avulla nuorten varkauksien, väkivaltarikosten ja kannabiksen käytön muutoksia aikavälillä 1995–2020. Esitämme seuraavat tutkimuskysymykset: 1) Miten nuorten rikoskäyttäytymisen esiintyvyys on kehittynyt vuosien 1995 ja 2020 välillä? 2) Miten rikoksia tekevien nuorten tekomäärät ovat kehittyneet vuosien 1995 ja 2020 välillä? Tulosten mukaan varkaus- ja väkivaltarikoksiin syyllistyvien nuorten määrä (esiintyvyys) on laskenut seurantajakson aikana, kun taas kannabista käyttävien nuorten osuus on hieman noussut. Vuosien 2016 ja 2020 välillä rikoskäyttäytymisessä ei ole enää tapahtunut merkitsevää muutosta. Yleisestä esiintyvyyden laskusta huolimatta, rikoksia tekevien nuorten tekomäärät eivät ole laskeneet aikavälillä 1995–2020. Väkivaltarikosten ja kannabiksen käytön kohdalla kaikkein rikosaktiivisimpien nuorten rikosmäärät ovat lisääntyneet seurantajakson aikana. Viime vuosikymmenien aikana rikoksia tekevien nuorten määrä on siis kehittynyt myönteisesti. Sen sijaan etenkin paljon rikoksia tekevien nuorten ryhmä näyttäisi vaativan erityisesti kohdennettuja toimia, jotta vastaavaa kehitystä nähtäisiin myös tekomäärien osalta. Markus Kaakinen and Matti Näsi: Prevalence of youth crime offending in Finland between 1995 and 2000. The crime drop, a systematic decline in crime rates in most Western countries, has been one of the key findings in criminology in recent decades. This development has also been observed in Finnish juvenile delinquency. In this study, we use Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study surveys to analyze changes in youth theft, violent crime, and cannabis use between years 1995 and 2020. We ask the following research questions: 1) How has the prevalence of juvenile delinquency developed between 1995 and 2020? 2) How has the juvenile offenders’ offending frequency developed between 1995 and 2020? The results show that the prevalence theft and violent crime has decreased during the follow-up period, while the proportion of young people using cannabis has increased slightly. Between 2016 and 2020, there has been no significant change in criminal behavior. Despite the general decline in prevalence, the offending frequency has not decreased between 1995 and 2020. In the case of violent crime and cannabis use, offending frequency has increased among the most criminally active juveniles. We conclude that even though the number of Finnish adolescents committing crimes has developed positively in recent decades the most active offenders likely require additional targeted policies and interventions. Keywords: youth delinquency – crime drop – Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study – prevalence – offending frequency

The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime over the Last Two Decades

Donohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong out-of-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: “When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1% a year in crime over the next two decades.” Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction and the broad hypothesis, while illuminating some previously unrecognized patterns of crime and arrests. We estimate that overall crime fell 17.5% from 1998 to 2014 due to legalized abortion—a decline of 1% per year. From 1991 to 2014, the violent and property crime rates each fell by 50%. Legalized abortion is estimated to have reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over this period, and thus can explain most of the observed crime decline.

Development and Crime Drop: A Time-Series Analysis of Crime Rates in Hong Kong in the Last Three Decades

Although the recent crime drop in Western societies has rejuvenated crime trend studies, little is known about the crime trends and the corresponding explanations in the East. This study aims to fill the gaps by examining different types of offenses in Hong Kong between 1976 and 2017. Specifically, this study tests and evaluates major macro-level theoretical approaches explaining crime trends, including institutional anomie theory, routine activities theory, and deterrence theory. Using Error Correction Models, our analyses reveal that the strengths of different social institutions are negatively associated with crime rates, showing strong support to institutional anomie theory. The results also partially support routine activities theory by demonstrating that levels of economic development are negatively associated with both violent and property crime rates, and the number of mobile cellular subscriptions is negatively related to homicide rates. Deterrence explanations are mainly supported for property crime. These findings provide theoretical insights on the etiology of crime and also yield important policy suggestions on how to sustain the observed decline in crime rates in modern societies.