Special Report: The Economics of Crime

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Does crime go up when the economy goes down? The theory's been debated for decades. As we continue reporting on mounting job losses, we wanted to see if overall crime, which had been trending downward in Indiana the last few years might be on the rise again. So I-Team 8 crunched the numbers and went looking for answers.

I-Team 8 used stats for four areas including the city of Indianapolis, the growing town of Fishers, and local cities facing higher than average unemployment: Anderson and Muncie. Our mission is to look at the economics of crime to see if jumps in joblessness translate to higher rates of violent or non-violent crime.

David George of Fishers said back in January, his family was victimized by an apparently drunk teen breaking into their house in the dark of night.

"You just don't know what has come into your home, whether they're armed," said George. "You hear all the stories of armed home intrusions."

The teen was unarmed and Fishers police arrived and arrested him before he stole anything.

Stories like his are why we began this investigation, gathering three years of crime stats and unemployment data and breaking it down for a month by month study of crime trends.

Sgt. Matt Mount of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department said people often ask if a bad economy causes more crime. He's not so sure.

"I don't think bad economic times cause crime," said Mount. "It's not poverty that causes crime, it's a poverty of values that causes crime."

But we found across Central Indiana crimes that may have an economic motivation. Property crimes are climbing, while violent crimes aren't.
We took our findings to the Indianapolis-based Polis Center, which studies urban issues, for some perspective.

"There might be a correlation between unemployment going up and crime going up," said crime analyst Jay Colbert. "But the high crime is not necessarily caused by high unemployment."

In Indianapolis, during 2008, most crime was down from the year before. But we found the number of burglaries rose 10 percent last year just as the unemployment rate was rising too.

Even though the jobless rate in Fishers is about half that of other places, burglaries there jumped 20 percent and larcenies, crimes like theft or shoplifting, jumped 22 percent. Much of the crimes peaked when $4 per gallon gas prompted a lot of people to pump and run without paying.

It's the kind of crime David George was trying to leave behind.

"We had moved to the area of Fishers because of its low crime rate and now we're seeing a jump and increase," he said.

Nationally, retailers are reporting more shoplifting. So we studied the number of times Indiana's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, called Indianapolis police about larceny or shoplifting. We discovered police runs were up nearly 62 percent from 2007-2008.

Anderson has been trying to pull out of an economic tailspin for years. As unemployment rose higher in ‘08, the number of robberies went up as well -- 18 percent more, and car theft was up 17 percent.

In Muncie, car theft is only up about three percent. But that doesn't mean the thieves aren't trying harder.

Car dealers and police wanted to know if Hi-Way 3 Hardware was being duped into making duplicate keys for thieves. Store clerk Steve Johnson explained how it might have been working.

"People taking the car for a test drive, getting spare keys made and then go take it back to the dealer and helping themselves to the car that night," says Johnson.

Police are still looking into whether that happened.

Muncie was the only place where we saw a rise in violent crime. Robberies up 30 percent, aggravated assaults jumped 10 percent. Still, the question remains. Is there an economic explanation for any of these trends?

"You may have somebody who is at the complete end of the rope that sees no other way other than going in and stealing," explains Sgt. Mount. "You may run into that a little bit more. But for the most part, people that commit violent crimes, habitual criminals, they're habitual criminals in good times and bad times."

There are some common sense ways to avoid being a crime victim. Garage doors left open, even for a few minutes, are inviting targets for thieves looking for big money items. In your car, keep valuables like electronic devices or laptops out of sight. Thieves are less likely to break in and look around. And don't walk away from your purse in the store even for a few seconds; it may be gone when you get back.

In other words, keep a criminal's potential profit from becoming your loss.

View the crime and unemployment stats we compiled for this story.