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30 J. Contemp. Crim. Just. 4 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/jccj30 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial journal of Contemporary Criminal justice 2014, Vol. 30(l) 4-6 Crime and the Great ©2013 SAGE Publications Reprints and permissions: Recession: Introduction to sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1043986213509540 the Special Issue ccj.sagepub.com SAGE When the Great Recession hit in early 2008, it was widely assumed that crime rates would increase. That was a reasonable expectation. Robbery and property crime rates generally rise during recessions and fall during recoveries (Bushway, Cook, & Phillips, 2013). Some evidence suggests homicide and assault rates do as well (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010; Rosenfeld, 2009). But the Great Recession was different. Crime rates fell in the United States and in most other developed nations hit by the financial collapse and recession. Why did crime rates not respond to the recent economic downturn as they had in the past? The 2008-2009 recession was no milder than previous ones; on the contrary, it was the longest and steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. For some criminologists and other observers, the absence of crime increases during the Great Recession simply confirmed their belief that crime has little to do with economic conditions (e.g., Wilson, 2011). This view, however, is not supported by recent studies showing that crime rates increase as economic conditions worsen and decrease as they improve (Arvanites & Defina, 2006; Bushway, Cook, & Phillips, 2013; Gould, Weinberg, & Mustard, 2002; Rosenfeld & Fornango, 2007). Either that body of research is fundamentally unsound, which is very unlikely, or something (or several things) had happened that broke the connection between recessions and crime increases that had prevailed since the Second World War. What may be responsible for the absence of crime increases during the Great Recession remains a puzzle. The contributions to this JCCJ special issue on crime and the Great Recession do not solve the puzzle; in some ways, in fact, they deepen the mystery. Perhaps crime did go up during or immediately after the recession, but only for some demographic groups. Not so, report Janet Lauritsen, Maribeth Rezey, and Karen Heimer in their study of U.S. victimization trends by sex, race, and ethnicity. The researchers find crime increases among several groups during previous downturns but none connected with the Great Recession. In fact, their data reveal some uncoupling of crime from economic conditions just after the turn of the current century, several years before the recession. They speculate that improvements in criminal justice responses, expansions in the social safety net, or cultural changes may have moderated the impact of economic change on crime rates in recent years, and call for research directed to these issues. Paolo Buonanno, Francesco Drago, and Roberto Galbiati conclude from their study of the impact of unemployment on crime trends that increases in unemployment have generated crime increases and decreases in unemployment have spurred crime declines

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