The relationship between unemployment and crime : A cross‐sectional analysis employing the British Crime Survey 1992

Various authors have tested for the presence of a relationship between unemployment and crime, employing time‐series or cross‐sectional data. However, little use has been made of the British Crime Survey. Consequently, in the present paper, we test for the presence of a relationship between male unemployment and crime, using regional and area‐level crime data from the 1992 British Crime Survey, with socio‐economic and demographic data being taken from the 1991 census. Use of these data sets allows us to look at four differing measures of crime: we can study possible relationships between male unemployment and the incidence, and prevalence, of both property and personal crimes. Area‐level data are also employed to test more ecological explanations of spatial crime patterns.