Shootings, murder-suicide raise broader question: Is violence linked to recession?
By Patrik Jonsson Patrik Jonsson – Mon Mar 30, 5:00 am ET
Atlanta – Four Oakland, Calif., police officers shot down. An Alabama man strolling a small town with a rifle, looking for victims. Seven elderly people shot dead at a North Carolina nursing home. And on Sunday, six people, including four kids, died in an apparent murder-suicide in an upscale neighborhood in Santa Clara, Calif.
The details in all these cases are still emerging. In most, the exact motive has yet to be determined – or may never be fully understood. On a broader level, however, such incidents may be happening more often because an increasing number of Americans feel desperate pressure from job losses and other economic hardship, criminologists say.
"Most of these mass killings are precipitated by some catastrophic loss, and when the economy goes south, there are simply more of these losses," says Jack Levin, a noted criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.
Direct correlation between economic cycles and homicides is difficult to prove, cautions Shawn Bushway, a criminologist at the University at Albany in New York. But an economic downturn of this breadth and depth hasn't been seen since data began to be collected after World War II, he also points out. "This is not the average situation," Mr. Bushway says.
Still, criminologists do say that certain kinds of violent crimes have risen during specific economic downturns. The recession in the early 1990s "saw a dramatic increase in workplace violence committed by vengeful ex-workers who decided to come back and get even with their boss and their co-workers through the barrel of an AK-47," Mr. Levin says.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090330/ts_cs...
Atlanta – Four Oakland, Calif., police officers shot down. An Alabama man strolling a small town with a rifle, looking for victims. Seven elderly people shot dead at a North Carolina nursing home. And on Sunday, six people, including four kids, died in an apparent murder-suicide in an upscale neighborhood in Santa Clara, Calif.
The details in all these cases are still emerging. In most, the exact motive has yet to be determined – or may never be fully understood. On a broader level, however, such incidents may be happening more often because an increasing number of Americans feel desperate pressure from job losses and other economic hardship, criminologists say.
"Most of these mass killings are precipitated by some catastrophic loss, and when the economy goes south, there are simply more of these losses," says Jack Levin, a noted criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.
Direct correlation between economic cycles and homicides is difficult to prove, cautions Shawn Bushway, a criminologist at the University at Albany in New York. But an economic downturn of this breadth and depth hasn't been seen since data began to be collected after World War II, he also points out. "This is not the average situation," Mr. Bushway says.
Still, criminologists do say that certain kinds of violent crimes have risen during specific economic downturns. The recession in the early 1990s "saw a dramatic increase in workplace violence committed by vengeful ex-workers who decided to come back and get even with their boss and their co-workers through the barrel of an AK-47," Mr. Levin says.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090330/ts_cs...
It seems as each recession brings out varies crime patterns. The depression had higher than normal suicide rates, the recession of the 80's and 90's pegged the term going postal and now people are robbing stores with kids in tote or killing their whole families and then themselves. We all know the crime that wrecks urban communities and the effects it has on free enterprise and now we are seeing these same effects in a broader sense in America. This recession/depression we are in is unique in that it is bringing everyone down to the same level. White, black whatever we are all feeling it the same.
I went to sam's club and they are now accepting foodstamps the same is true for seven eleven (neither store in my area has ever accepted this form of payment). I went to an accounting seminar last week and they were discussing how they were changing the limits for welfare so that more people would qualify and also they want to make it so that you don't have to be dirt poor to receive it. They were telling us so that we could tailor our practices around the influx of upper middle class who are now receiving these payments.