American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc. Some Determinants of Property Crime: Economic Factors Influence Criminal Behavior but Cannot Completely Explain the Syndrome Author(s): Roy M. Howsen and Stephen B. Jarrell Source: American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 445-457 Published by: American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3486660 Accessed: 30/11/2009 16:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ajesi. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Economics and Sociology. http://www.jstor.org

Some Determinants of Property Crime: Economic Factors Influence Criminal Behavior But Cannot Completely Explain the Syndrome By ROY M. HOWSEN and STEPHEN B. JARRELL* ABSTRACT. An empirical analysis of the property crimes, robbery, burglary and larceny, is presented for all 120 counties in Kentucky. While this analysis is based on an economic model of crime, certain sociological and legal variables are included as well in the system of equations. Overall, the empirical results support prior studies' findings with the exception that a quadratic relationship is found to exist between urbanization and each of the property crimes. Fur- thermore, neither the economic nor the non-economic influences measured appear more important for affecting crime rates. Specifically, results indicate that the level of poverty, the degree of tourism, the presence of police, the unemployment rate and the apprehension rate all affect property crimes. In contrast, the length of sentence, the degree of industrialization, the level of public assistance payments and the proportion of youth in the county have no affect on property crime rates in these areas. I Introduction DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES HAVE DEVELOPED alternative theories for the origin of criminal activity. The cornerstones of these theories vary from emotional and behavioral characteristics in psychology, physiological characteristics in biology, environmental and organizational variables in sociology, to alternative cost and benefit considerations in economics. No discipline exclusively explains all of the variation in criminal activity, but these models have added insights that help in its understanding. While the empirical analysis in this paper is based on the economic model, sociological and legal considerations are incorporated as well. Economists as- sume that criminals make a rational choice to engage or not in illegal action, based on individual perceptions of the net benefits of such action. The social and legal environment in which the decision is made affect these perceptions. Socioeconomic and law enforcement variables are included to control for the various environmental characteristics. A system of equations combining these * [Roy M. Howsen, Ph.D., and Stephen B. Jarrell, Ph.D., are associate professors of economics, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101.] American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 4 (October, 1987). O 1987 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.