U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Reevaluating Foreclosure Effects on Crime During the "Great Recession"

NCJ Number
247539
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 30 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2014 Pages: 41-69
Author(s)
Kevin T. Wolff; Joshua C. Cochran; Eric P. Baumer
Date Published
February 2014
Length
29 pages
Annotation

High rates of foreclosures during the "Great Recession" raised concerns about the potential harmful effects of the housing crisis not just on the economy, but also on levels of crime.

Abstract

Grounded primarily in theories of social disorganization and incivility, a growing body of empirical research has been directed at exploring whether the foreclosure crisis stimulated higher crime rates in America than would otherwise have been experienced. Many studies have now reported a significant association between rates of foreclosure and crime during the recession, but the authors were skeptical of whether this represented a causal effect because it was unclear whether the traditional regression approaches applied in most of the extent research account sufficiently for preexisting differences present in areas that experienced varying levels of foreclosure. The authors advance the literature on foreclosure and crime by employing a propensity score matching (PSM) technique to better account for such differences, evaluating whether U.S. counties that received larger "doses" of foreclosure during the recent recession experienced higher levels of property crime than comparable counties in which rates of foreclosure remained relatively low. The analysis shows that, once prerecession differences between counties with high versus medium-to-low foreclosure rates are removed, there is no evidence of a significant association between rates of foreclosure and crime. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage Journals.