Coronavirus crims: Pandemic to breed new generation of crooks (paywalled)
Amelia Saw
Herlad Sun
March 26, 2020
A new generation of fresh young crims is likely to be the legacy of the coronavirus, if the economy continues to nosedive and a class of long-term unemployed youth emerges.
With economists predicting widespread job losses and less opportunities for those entering the job market, such as school-leavers and graduates, those unable to work may forge criminal careers.
Renowned crime statistician and UNSW professor Dr Don Weatherburn has extensively researched the link between economic deprivation and crime.
“Most of the unemployed are just transitioning between jobs, so it’s not the sudden rise in unemployment that generates trouble, it’s the long-term unemployed,” Dr Weatherburn said.
“When people are unemployed for more than a year they start to lose interest in the job market and get interested in other ways of making money.
“It’s not as if young kids coming out of school are going to start breaking into houses if they don’t get a job within three weeks or six months but as time wears on and you’re getting towards nine, twelve and eighteen months, then you’re really talking about potential for a spike in crime.”
Fraud, drug dealing and shop stealing are three offences that may see increases as long-term unemployed youth find illegal avenues for survival.
Reassuringly, Dr Weatherburn predicts break and enter – an offence which has steadily declined over the past two decades – is unlikely to grow significantly.
Domestic violence is another area experts predict will grow exponentially as couples self-isolate together at home.
COVID-19 could also see schoolchildren lured by criminal pursuits, particularly if Australia opts to close schools for an extended time according to esteemed criminologist at Griffith University, Professor Ross Homel.
“If there’s a prolonged period where children are not at school we know from the research there tends to be an increase in opportunistic offending kids. There’s an old saying, ‘Idle hands are the devil’s handiwork’.”
Although recessions don’t always equate to soaring crime rates, such as during Australia’s Great Depression in the 1930s when the crime rate remained largely unchanged, analysis by the World Economic Forum states that young people who leave school during a recession, when youth unemployment is high, are more likely to engage in crime.
Based on a variety of US and UK data sources, the Forum noted that in the US the average arrest rate for a group entering the labour market in a recession was 10.2 per cent higher than for a similar group entering the workforce at a more buoyant time.
In the UK, the conviction rate for a group entering the labour market during a recession was four per cent higher than those entering the market in a healthier economy.
This new generation of COVID-19 crims are also more likely to stick around in the underworld.
Professor Homel witnessed this first-hand in longitudinal research of kids who regularly engaged in crime.
“If young people don’t get a job and settle down, or they lose their job, there is a tendency for them to go back into their old “profession” (crime). When the legitimate opportunities dry up they resume their own practices,” he said.
Dr Weatherburn concurs, “Crime is sticky, once you get into it and you start making money, it’s hard to get out and that’s doubly so when you get a criminal conviction because once you’ve got a criminal conviction it gets harder to get a job.”
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