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Why have burglaries declined?
Eric H. points to the question of why burglaries have declined steadily, when other crime rates have been more volatile. Here is one bit:
Criminologists have a lot of theories why burglaries are so different..."If you're going to do a burglary, you need to have some buyers," Mathis says. "Everybody has everything now."
Mathis says there's just too much on the street already. Everyone he knows already has a digital camera, iPod knockoffs and pirated DVDs shipped in from China. "And if it's not new, a lot of people don't even want to fool with it," Mathis says. Forget about last year's video games and old laptops, Mathis says. And don't even bring a VCR or boxy TV to the street.
"You can get a TV for nothing almost," he says. "People are giving them away now."
In other words, we have fewer burglaries because of low wages in China. You'll note that the standard Baumol-Bowen model of the cost-disease predicts an ongoing decline in burglaries. Goods become cheaper over time, and thus not worth stealing, while services grow more expensive over time. It is usually harder to steal services so burglary rates should fall.
The article also cites the decline of heavy drug use, better locks and deadbolts, and more widespread use of locks, plus less cash left around the house. Some experts cite greater neighborhood vigilance. Note that robberies are not falling in similar fashion, which suggests that criminals prefer to get the victim away from home turf advantage.
Here is further information. British burglary is falling too.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 20, 2008 at 10:23 AM in Law | Permalink
Comments
Note that robberies are not falling in similar fashion, which suggests that criminals prefer to get the victim away from home turf advantage.
People committing robberies are generally after cash rather than property.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 20, 2008 10:31:07 AM
Which of course begs the question "how can I get into the business of stealing services?"
Posted by: K. at Mar 20, 2008 10:32:30 AM
could you steal a service by stealing someone's identity?
Posted by: Mike Fladlien at Mar 20, 2008 10:38:11 AM
"Goods become cheaper over time, and thus not worth stealing, while services grow more expensive over time. It is usually harder to steal services so burglary rates should fall."
It occurs to me that there is a way to measure the other side of this phenomenon, even though services are, as you've noted, harder to steal.
The way to steal a service is through fraud. So, as services become more expensive, I would suspect that the rates of fraud-based crimes would increase. Does anybody have their hands on any data that might indicate this is, or is not, the case?
Posted by: Ironman at Mar 20, 2008 10:41:10 AM
Digital crime leaves digital evidence. The goods can be moved quickly, even instantly. And there is no physical break-in and no risk of confronting the victim, which could add assault/manslaughter charges.
Posted by: 8 at Mar 20, 2008 11:17:55 AM
But fakes are up: http://www.reuters.com/article/COMSRV/idUSN1933306820080320
Thank-you eBay, the largest fencing operation in history.
Posted by: michael webster at Mar 20, 2008 11:23:55 AM
Consumer trends are clearly driving up home burglary business
costs, while lowering larceny and armed robbery costs.
Stealing and fencing a 64-inch plasma screen TV or 12-burner
Aaga stove is high-risk and relatively low-return. And with
credit/debit cards supplanting cash as our main purchasing
medium, the typical unoccupied house doesnt offer much
instant return.
You get higher and more certain ROI by mugging a pedestrian
for his/her Ipod or Visa, or by hitting parked cars for GPS,
phones, video games, etc. Home invasion is a potentially
lucrative twist on mugging, but requires signifcant market
research, organization, and operational know-how.
My views reflect trend observations by friends in the local
criminal justice scene. I'd love to see an economist gather
and analyze some data on this.
Posted by: Paul at Mar 20, 2008 11:27:30 AM
Burglary is on the rise in this part of the globe since gold ornaments and a booming gold markets dominate daily life.
Posted by: GVV at Mar 20, 2008 11:29:41 AM
You get higher and more certain ROI ... by hitting parked cars for GPS,
phones, video games, etc.
Car break-ins are a less risky venture than home burglaries because the penalties for getting caught are much lighter in most places.
--
Home invasion is a potentially lucrative twist on mugging, but requires signifcant market research, organization, and operational know-how.
As I understand it, most home invasions target people who are involved in the drug trade. Truly "innocent" victims are uncommon.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 20, 2008 11:38:13 AM
I wish somebody could figure out what was the effect of introducing debit cards in the rates of burglaries and robberies of commercial establishments. Its seems to me there is not just less spare money around the house, there's less paper money in the cash register. That should have some marginal effect, right?
Posted by: Cisco at Mar 20, 2008 12:17:49 PM
Uhm, guns, *cough* castle doctrine *cough*, dead perps, film at eleven...
Posted by: The Owner's Manual at Mar 20, 2008 1:19:30 PM
...guns....
Exactly. We'll soon have D.C. to study the effects of more legal guns in the house. I bet crime goes down.
Posted by: Tom at Mar 20, 2008 1:26:56 PM
Cisco wrote:
I wish somebody could figure out what was the effect of introducing debit cards in the rates of burglaries and robberies of commercial establishments. Its seems to me there is not just less spare money around the house, there's less paper money in the cash register. That should have some marginal effect, right?
I lived in Mexico for several years, when I got there, most people got paid cash (not checks, cash), even top managers; there was some law about it. By the late 90's it was changed so workers could open a no-fee account where they could draw their money using a Debit card. One of the reasons they did that (besides lobbying from the banks) was that bands of criminals would rob workers as they were waiting for the bus to go home on payday, and it worked, that type of crime almost disapeared.
However, there was huge increase in "Express" abductions, where criminals will pick up their victims before midnight take him to an ATM to withdraw the maximum daily ammount, wait after midnight, do it again and release them. One advise I was given when going to Mexico City was to carry a single credit/debit card and make sure you knew the PIN.
Posted by: Henry at Mar 20, 2008 1:53:08 PM
Here's one way to steal a service.
"All may not be as it seems, however. One stunning blonde named Samantha believed she had been recruited in just that way by an elite agency of same calibre as the Emperor's Club.
She was even asked to fill out income tax forms and fax them to the future "employer", with the promise that an initial $4,500 cheque would be forthcoming after she spent a weekend in Atlantic City with her first client.
Assured by such formalities, she kept the date. When no cheque subsequently arrived, Samantha called the agency to complain, only to find that the telephone number used to retain her services was a throwaway mobile, and the fax number that of a Wall Street print shop. A cheeky New York finance man had duped her into bedding him."
Posted by: jason voorhees at Mar 20, 2008 1:58:11 PM
Neat point, Tyler. Two additional ones. First, the value of goods is declining relative to the value of time. So it's not just the services that are increasing in value but hard to steal; it's also that the value of the potential thief's time has risen.
Second, what a sad comment at the end of the article. The former thief felt bad because someone had stolen his camera but not left behind the valuable film of his father. And the thief had never thought about whether he had done the same to anyone. Well, if he's like the guy who stole my tape deck that had my favorite tape on it, including a radio show where I was at my peak performance, he did.
Posted by: David R. Henderson at Mar 20, 2008 2:03:03 PM
"Car break-ins are a less risky venture than home burglaries because the penalties for getting caught are much lighter in most places." -Peter
Car break-ins are also less risky because it is pretty easy to tell whether or not someone is "at home," and cars are smaller than homes so there is less time spent searching for valuables.
Posted by: billy at Mar 20, 2008 2:51:23 PM
Tom said, "Exactly. We'll soon have D.C. to study the effects of more legal guns in the house. I bet crime goes down."
Careful there. If increased crime rates are tied to economic troubles, and we're headed into a recession, then you could get more burglaries in D.C. just as you get more guns in the homes. The highly misleading numbers will be on the side of gun control advocates; just as they might be on the right-to-arms side if guns became more available as the economy was booming.
Don't count your chickens until you're sure they're packin' heat.
Posted by: Aldo at Mar 20, 2008 4:08:54 PM
Lots of people think that electronics has become cheaper because of Chinese manufacture. I work in electronics and know that it isn't really true.
If there were no China and no other sources of cheap labour it would still be possible to build cheap electronics. Manufacturers would have to produce far fewer models of each device (more like an Apple product line than a HP or Sony one), and would have to automate the manufacturing process much more. But, it could be done.
What has really helped cost is the reduction in the number of components devices needed to make a unit like a TV, computer or mobile phone. A 1980s computer had very few transistors compared to today but had hundreds of chips. Associated with the expansion in electronic consumer goods has been the expansion in the number of vendors of components and the disappearance of monopolies which once existed in many areas.
Another significant advance has been the removal of most complicated mechanical devices. A DVD drive is cheaper to make than a video player not because of China but because its not full of magnetic pickup heads, servos and gear assemblies.
China has been a sideshow, allowing companies to run many product lines by using manual production, and allowing companies to get to market faster by ignoring some manufacturability concerns.
Posted by: Anonymous at Mar 20, 2008 4:35:20 PM
I'm surprised there's not mention of cell phones, as in those in the pockets of passerbys who see someone jimmying a window . . .
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Mar 20, 2008 4:42:57 PM
What's puzzling here is that, thanks to eBay and Craigslist, there is now a much broader and more lucrative market for used (read: stolen) goods. What once had to be sold to a fence for a few dollars can fetch perhaps 50% to 80% of retail, if the item isn't too old or worn, in the electronic marketplace. Perhaps thieves aren't sufficiently organized or disciplined to do this? I'm not saying everything sold online is stolen of course, but I do wonder how much is.
Posted by: Dan at Mar 20, 2008 5:35:14 PM
I think low wages in China are only part of the story. Look at Craigslist as well. Why buy a stolen 27" tv when you can buy a used one legitimately for $25.
Posted by: mgs at Mar 20, 2008 8:59:16 PM
I'm surprised there's not mention of cell phones, as in those in the pockets of passerbys who see someone jimmying a window . . .
Heck, what about the burglar in San Francisco who was doing his thing, so to speak, right as the Google Street View camera van was driving by?
Posted by: Peter at Mar 20, 2008 10:48:46 PM
re: guns,
Would this apply to Britain, too?
Posted by: shecky at Mar 20, 2008 10:48:47 PM
Murder is down, too (really quite a bit from the peak in the early 90s) as are rape and other violent crimes. Seems likely to me that all these declines are related.
Nobody knows why. Whatever is proposed as an explanation will tell us much more about the speaker than it will tell us about whatever is actually driving the crime rate.
Posted by: Mike at Mar 21, 2008 7:26:35 AM
Having stereos taken from both of my cars this year had me thinking along the same line. What in the hell were these guys thinking? One was 10 years old and the other was just the standard CD player on a Honda Civic? What could they sell these for?
Posted by: JF Cote at Mar 21, 2008 9:16:11 AM
JF: They were probably incapable of thinking. That's the #1 reason people become criminals in the first place.
"how can I get into the business of stealing services?" The first thing I thought of was slavery - which does happen in the USA sometimes with illegal immigrants and with hookers, but it's not going to be a widespread phenomenon. It requires planning ahead and organization, which lets most crooks out, and the supply of potential slaves is limited. Anyone that understands their rights and has enough self-esteem to think they deserve better is eventually going to find a way to escape or tip the police off to the operation. The other way to steal services is through fraud, but once again that's beyond the mental capacity of the average crook. Or you can try to steal cash instead of goods, but robbery is riskier than burglary and is becoming less lucrative as people carry less cash. It seems like I'm hearing more often about really, really dumb robbers, such as the bank robber that wrote his demands on the back of a deposit slip for his own account - is this a change in news coverage, or an actual increase in low-grade crooks trying stuff they're not really qualified for? Finally, you can try to steal credit and debit cards and deliver them to someone smart enough to get money out of them without getting caught, but I expect the card companies to improve their fraud-detection algorithms, improve computers and communications so cards are cut off the instant they're reported stolen, and work more with police and merchants to improve the chances of actually apprehending those using stolen cards.
So, the one group of criminals that will survive and prosper are the great con-men - but those are people who could probably have been richer if they'd stayed within the law and worked at legitimate jobs. The great mass of idiotic crooks might be forced to go to work at McDonald's...
Posted by: markm at Mar 21, 2008 9:56:27 AM
It's interesting to ask: what does it look like when a large set of criminals suddenly find themselves put out of business? The obvious example of this in the US is the end of prohibition, other examples involve folks selling pornography over the time that this stopped being illegal or the laws stopped being enforced.
I've heard the claim that the electronic engine locks ("interruptor" or some such) in modern cars had made it all but impossible to hot-wire cars, and that one result has been more burglaries done just to get the keys (kick in the front door, grab the keys if you see them, then drive away in the car).
What would happen if technological changes just made violent crime unworkable, really quickly. Would the guys who go around mugging people go hungry? Would they turn up at McDonald's looking for work? Or would they try to push into a new line of criminal work, if they could find one?
Posted by: albatross at Mar 21, 2008 2:00:49 PM
So perhaps auto theft decreases as cars become more affordable, at least excluding the high end.
Posted by: Richard Davis at Mar 23, 2008 10:54:38 PM
Multiple factors at play here
1. More apartments living, its simply a harder to steal from apartmenst. You've generally got to get in. Then the neighbours will be home etc.
2. More home alarms
3. Stuff is woth less all the time, especially resale.
From a peronal perspective, I don't bother insuring my home anymore and have furnished good but old stereos and tv from work colleagues cast offs.
Posted by: Pete at Mar 24, 2008 8:37:31 PM
In South Florida, the majority of burglaries have always been committed by teenagers in the afternoons after school. These burglaries have not been as a rule very severe but the frequency drowned everything else.
If you look at insurance statistics as a way to supplement police information in a zip code, you can tag a specific severity and time to burglaries.
At any rate, it is possible that increased emphasis on school attendance and supervision of teenagers has made this component of burglary statistics reduce somewhat.
Posted by: Bob Calder at Mar 25, 2008 8:08:55 AM
Obvious burglaries are going to decline in the future of at least our country. We only become more and more civilized every day giving each individual with any kind of wit about him the opportunity to provide for his self in a legal manner. Along with the decline in burglary if think that drug use is declining for the same reason and together they will pull each other down. The low priced goods that china sends us also have a great effect on the amount of burglary because it is more hassle to steal an average target from somebody’s home than what you would actually end up getting out of it for a street price. I also believe that the average individual today will stand up for himself and protect himself more so than twenty years ago. Most people do have much better security measures on their houses, and many probably have a gun that they wood use in a second against an unwanted burglar. All of these elements combined is what I believe I bringing down the number of burglaries.
Fletcher King
Posted by: Fletcher King at Mar 25, 2008 11:42:26 AM
...guns...
an armed society is a polite society
Posted by: euonymous at Mar 25, 2008 1:19:36 PM
Burglary may be going down, but crime will always be good fun.
Posted by: Alan Golder at Apr 4, 2008 9:21:11 PM
"Car break-ins are a less risky venture than home burglaries because the penalties for getting caught are much lighter in most places."
Car break-ins are less risky because there is essentially no chance of meeting an armed owner is a space you thought was unoccupied.
-dk
Posted by: Dick King at Apr 7, 2008 2:13:18 PM
>I've heard the claim that the electronic engine locks ("interruptor" or some such) in modern cars had made it all but impossible to hot-wire cars, and that one result has been more burglaries done just to get the keys (kick in the front door, grab the keys if you see them, then drive away in the car).
>So perhaps auto theft decreases as cars become more affordable, at least excluding the high end.
Carjacking didn't exist before these locks got sophisticated. When GM introduced the PassKey system (I worked for GM at the time), most of the earliest thefts were tow aways or swapping keys at dealerships (take a test drive, and hand back a different key than starts the car, come back later) and the PassKey system was merely a resistor pellet in the shank of the key.
Auto theft hasn't dropped due to anti-theft measures. Like fixing old plumbing, the new leaks appear in different places than it appeared before the countermeasures went into play.
Posted by: Tangurena at Apr 7, 2008 6:33:29 PM
