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The Crime Drop in Comparative Perspective: The Impact of the Economy and Imprisonment on American and European Burglary Rates

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Book cover The International Crime Drop

Part of the book series: Crime Prevention and Security Management ((CPSM))

Abstract

A dramatic drop in violent and property crime occurred in the USA during the 1990s, leading one analyst to herald the reduction ‘the great American crime decline’ (Zimring 2006a). Whether crime rates were falling elsewhere in the world, and for the same reasons, are questions that have been largely absent from academic and public commentary in the USA. To illustrate, Zimring (2006a) criticizes his American colleagues for neglecting crime trends in other nations and presents data showing declines in Canada similar to the US reductions. But he concludes from data for three European nations and Japan that other developed nations exhibited ‘no typical pattern’ of crime changes during the 1990s (Zimring 2006a, p.15). Other influential accounts of the American crime drop make no mention of trends beyond the US borders (Blumstein and Wallman 2006; Rosenfeld 2004). For most commentators in the US, the crime drop of the 1990s was the ‘great American crime decline’.1

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Authors
  1. Richard Rosenfeld
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  2. Steven F. Messner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Security and Safety, International Victimology Institute, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

    Jan van Dijk (Professor of Victimology) (Professor of Victimology)

  2. Nottingham Trent University, UK

    Andromachi Tseloni (Professor of Criminology) (Professor of Criminology)

  3. Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Canada

    Graham Farrell (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor) (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor)

  4. School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Canada

    Graham Farrell (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor) (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor)

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© 2012 Richard Rosenfeld and Steven F. Messner

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Rosenfeld, R., Messner, S.F. (2012). The Crime Drop in Comparative Perspective: The Impact of the Economy and Imprisonment on American and European Burglary Rates. In: van Dijk, J., Tseloni, A., Farrell, G. (eds) The International Crime Drop. Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291462_9

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