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Evaluating Recent Changes in Homicide and Robbery Rates

This paper evaluates the Police Executive Research Forum's (PERF) recent warnings of a “gathering storm” of criminal violence in the United States. We argue that increases in violent crime during 2005 and 2006 were the expected result of year-to-year changes in the economy and imprisonment. Our argument is supported by an analysis of changes in homicide and robbery rates between 1970 and 2006 showing that short-run variation in homicide and robbery rates are a function of changes in imprisonment, the age composition of the population, and the economy. But PERF's warning of a new crime wave may simply have been premature. The steep economic downturn of 2008 portends a crime rise that may dwarf the 2005 and 2006 increases. Local communities and criminal justice practitioners should demand better research on crime trends that can help them evaluate current practice and plan for the future.