The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime, Results of a Global Legal Study and a Factual Study...

2. Literature review 2.1 Overview of the crime-to-economy connection literature background The society exists merely because humans are the only species able to interact with complete strangers if they are connected through one or several ideas, beliefs, or norms. People can trust a random person on the street because they know what to expect from them (Harari, 2014). These expectations are based on the belief that the person in front would follow the conventional rules and would not do us any harm. People believe that breaking some rules and committing crime is not in our nature. Moreover, everyone thinks that only by following laws and norms and doing what is right can the society thrive. Everyone understands it really, yet not everyone does it.

Thus, in EU in 2017, there were roughly 400,000 robberies, more than 5,000 intentional homicides, more than 1 million assaults, almost 700,000 car thefts, and many other crimes committed within an area of slightly more than 4,400,000 square kilometres (Eurostat, 2019). Scientists from all over the world keep themselves busy by trying to understand why it happens and what effect it has on the society.

On the one hand, it is debated that economically dissatisfied citizens blinded by successes of others believe crime to be a possible way of getting ‘justice’. This way, crime is treated basically as an activity rewarded with material benefits, ergo, a job. Thereby, Rosenfeld (2009) presents and elaborates the idea that the relationship between crime and welfare may exist in this form. He suggests that unfavourable economic conditions have their impact on crime, i.e. poverty and unemployment force people to commit crime for material benefits. Crime could be still seen as a tool of equalizing people from different income categories. Cook and Zarkin support the idea by saying “The business cycle has a pervasive effect on the structure of economic opportunity and hence on behaviour” (1985). They use empirical evidence of increased crime rates during recessions as a supporting argument for the idea that business cycles have their effect on crime. They find that during recessions, the number of property-related crimes and homicides increases.

It does sound logical, and there are many researchers agreeing with this point of view. Thus, Pyle and Deadman (1994) and later Hale (1998) find confirmations for the fact that consumption is negatively correlated with property-related crimes.