By Osborne Jackson and Thu Tran

The “hidden tax” resulting from larceny crime refers to the higher prices paid by consumers to producers who raise prices in order to pass on some of the associated cost of such theft. In the same vein, consumers who are victimized by larceny theft could pass along some of the associated cost that they bear by spending less. This study analyzes larceny crime as a hidden tax in order to examine its welfare implications. Using traditional tax theory, the authors first characterize how larceny crime might create distortions in a given product market. Employing a sample covering 17 US states during the 2000–2015 period, they then use the enactment of higher felony larceny thresholds to generate exogenous variation in larceny crime by product market. A felony larceny threshold is the dollar value of stolen property at or above which a larceny offense may be charged in court as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Focusing on the subset of larceny crime that is likely most affected by raising the larceny threshold, the authors calculate baseline hidden tax rates and then examine how changes in larceny rates related to higher thresholds affect this tax. They use these estimated changes in the hidden tax rates to compare the associated welfare costs of larceny crime across product markets.''

Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Research Department. 2020, 33

By Ralph B. Taylor

For close to a century, the field of community criminology has examined the causes and consequences of community crime and delinquency rates. Nevertheless, there is still a lot we do not know about the dynamics behind these connections. In this book, Ralph Taylor argues that obstacles to deepening our understanding of community/crime links arise in part because most scholars have overlooked four fundamental concerns: how conceptual frames depend on the geographic units and/or temporal units used; how to establish the meaning of theoretically central ecological empirical indicators; and how to think about the causes and consequences of non-random selection dynamics. The volume organizes these four conceptual challenges using a common meta-analytic framework. The framework pinpoints critical features of and gaps in current theories about communities and crime, connects these concerns to current debates in both criminology and the philosophy of social science, and sketches the types of theory testing needed in the future if we are to grow our understanding of the causes and consequences of community crime rates. Taylor explains that a common meta-theoretical frame provides a grammar for thinking critically about current theories and simultaneously allows presenting these four topics and their connections in a unified manner. The volume provides an orientation to current and past scholarship in this area by describing three distinct but related community crime sequences involving delinquents, adult offenders, and victims. These sequences highlight community justice dynamics thereby raising questions about frequently used crime indicators in this area of research. A groundbreaking work melding past scholarly practices in criminology with the field’s current needs, Community Criminology is an essential work for criminologists.

New York; London: New York University Press, 2015. 336p.

By James Austin, Todd Clear, and Richard Rosenfeld

Illinois is one of several states considering how to reduce its prison population amid the pandemic and calls for an end to mass incarceration. In recent years, the state has taken steps to reduce its prison population through judicial discretion, bail reform, and diversion programs. As Illinois’ prison population declines and policymakers, prosecutors, and courts consider alternatives to incarceration, what is the risk to public safety? Is crime likely to increase or decline in the state as those convicted of crimes are released or diverted to other programs? In this study, funded by The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the authors conclude that Illinois crime rates, which have been on the decline since the 1990s, will continue to decline in a fluctuating pattern, with moderate year-to-year changes. This will be true even if Illinois reduces its prison population by an additional 25% over five years. The authors reached this conclusion by constructing a quantitative model that accounts for Illinois crime trends over nearly four decades and provides a basis for predicting crime rates in the near future. This study is a companion to the 2020 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation report Explaining the Past and Projecting Future Crime Rates, which examined national crime trends and reached similar conclusions about crime rates in the near future.   

New York: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. 2020, 23pg

By James Austin, Richard Rosenfeld and Todd Clear

Florida has benefited from the national drop in crime that began in the early 1990s. Its growth in incarceration also paralleled the steady national imprisonment rise of the last forty-five years. Florida’s rate peaked around 2010 and has been declining ever since. Policy makers would benefit from defensible projections of future trends in crime, and especially from estimates of the effect that further reductions in the number of people in jail and prison might have on those trends. The authors of this study developed quantitative models—explained here in non-technical language—of the effects of various demographic and economic factors, as well as the imprisonment rate, on Florida’s past crime rates. They then used these models to project crime trends into the 2020s, both with and without the assumption of a substantial reduction in imprisonment.

New York: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. 2021, 28pg