Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo
Two men play cards on a stoop in Bushwick, Brooklyn, April 2, 2020.
Beverly is 92 years old and still sharp as a tack. She was only one year old in 1929 when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression engulfed her family and everyone else in their Ohio River town. Her father lost his job at the local steel mill and relied on breadlines to bring food home to his family of six; Beverly’s bowed legs still attest to the malnutrition. Last month, with coronavirus expected to ravage the Florida condo community where she winters, she allowed her daughter to drive her from Florida to her home in Ohio, where she can live isolated and safe until the virus wanes.
That’s a long drive, and loquacious Bev—my mom—had a lot to say along the way about how people respond to crisis and how they live when economic security disappears. Few people alive today have personal memories of the Great Depression. Her memories of her family’s efforts to get food through gardening and barter are vivid. She remembers when work arrived for her father with the Works Progress Administration. She doesn’t recall riots or rampant crime or widespread personal victimization.
That isn’t because Beverly was simply unaware of riots and crime waves as the Depression deepened. They didn’t happen. Asked about what she knew of crime growing up in that era, she replied with mild surprise. “When people are hungry, they don’t beat each other up. They help each other out. We kids played in the streets every night, and none of the houses were ever locked. What was there to steal, anyway?”
“When people are hungry, they don’t beat each other up. They help each other out.”
Whether the economic meltdown of 2020 will be similar to the market crash of 1929 is currently unknown. Most economists predict a deep recession, some even using the “D-word.” Millions of people have suddenly lost their jobs and are hoping that federal aid will cover their rent, medical bills, and food costs. In the meantime, fears about the virus and mass unemployment have raised anxieties about other threats, such as crime.
The worry about crime, however, has little basis. The first crime reports emerging now after the onset of the virus spread show drastic reductions in most serious street crime—over 25 percent in New York City in the first week of the crisis.
Many people think unemployment is one of the circumstances that leads to increased crime. But research in criminology shows almost no correlation between unemployment rates and crime rates. These findings are based on data on serious felonies collected in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, which measure homicides, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny, arson, car theft, and burglary. Unemployment is linked only to a comparatively minor crime—shoplifting—not to violent felonies.
The idea that desperate people will storm food stores or break into homes of the wealthy likewise finds no precedent in American history. Riots occur during times of rising social and economic expectations, not depressions. Looting occurs opportunistically after a riot or immediately after an unexpected major event such as an electrical blackout or a hurricane, not as the result of a months-long slide into economic turmoil.
Burglaries do not spike in economic downturns, either. Beverly’s point about “what was there to steal?” during the Depression was apt. Burglars today are like the rest of us in this crisis: They don’t want the virus, so they don’t want to go into other people’s houses right now, especially when so many people are sheltering in place there. Also, selling stolen household valuables at a good price in a depression wouldn’t be easy.
Nevertheless, some crimes are likely to increase. Americans are now crammed into houses and apartments with their loved ones—who might turn out to be not quite so loved. Police reports show that domestic violence against spouses, partners, roommates, and even children is rising (and those statistics count only incidents reported to the police). Most crime is committed by someone the victim knows. Domestic assault is the prime example.
The predictable rise in domestic violence, if coupled with the presence of a gun in the house, is the most immediate concern under coronavirus crime conditions. A suggestion: If you have a gun, lock it now. It is more likely to be used by family members against each other than against the imagined hordes outside. Moreover, if indeed someone is outside and you fear a break-in, it’s likely to be a muddled delivery person, not a criminal.
With so many people quarantined at home and checking on each other’s health and safety, the pandemic is likely to increase community defenses.
The other type of crime likely to spike is fraud. The scams are already starting, with offers of nonexistent masks and phony COVID-19 cures and emailed appeals to “help the pets stranded when owners die” or “invest in the one stock that skyrockets in a depression.” White-collar crime of all types is likely to increase. Organizations under extreme stress will grasp for ways of producing revenue, even illegal ways. Employees will feel pressure to pilfer or even embezzle to help desperate family and friends.
Criminal enterprises are under stress, too. I’m not suggesting any sympathy for gangsters. But when supply chains and personnel for delivering illegal drugs are disrupted, not only will many addicts get sick and desperate. Warfare among criminal gangs over the control of illegal markets is also likely to erupt. Think Al Capone.
What about the police? Will they be so stressed that they will not be able to arrest the bad guys? To a degree, perhaps, but it’s unlikely to be much of a factor in overall crime rates. Vigorous and immediate response to 911 calls reporting felony crimes is a vital police role, but community resilience and vigilance—networks of friends, families, and neighbors who “see something, say something”—are even more important. Ironically, with so many people quarantined at home and checking on each other’s health and safety, the pandemic is likely to increase those community defenses.
Vigilant and helpful neighbors are as much a crime-prevention device today as they were in the days of the Great Depression. In fact, as a result of technology unimagined in the 1930s, we are even more connected to each other now than Beverly’s family was. Today, not only can you see something and say something to your neighbor or the police; you can also take a picture of it and share it instantaneously. Cellphones may be a factor in the great decline of crime since the 1990s.
When we reached Ohio, Beverly settled back into her house and I prepared to drive back to New York. “Give my regards to Broadway!” she declared with a wave, as she picked her phone out of her pocket to answer the first of many calls from neighbors who, having spotted her already, were calling to discuss survival tips for the coming months.
