"Long-term material conditions are important," UC Irvine criminologist Elliott Currie told me. "They can affect values and the belief in what kinds of conduct are acceptable or not. If you put people in really lousy conditions, they'll begin to think differently about school, drugs or gangs."
Another way to think about all this is to fit it into the basic left/right analysis of crime and social dysfunction. Liberals argue that society's negative or unfair structures are the main impediments to individuals' success. Conservatives tend to blame bad personal behavior for bad outcomes. In the battle between what might be called structuralism and behavioralism, the truth is that if you step far enough back, the whole thing is a big feedback loop.
Economic and social conditions affect how people see their futures and how they choose to see and interact with the world around them. In other words, left and right are both correct, if we wait long enough. Just as behavior and culture create conditions, conditions shape culture and behavior.
That means that, even after the recession ends, the bad economic statistics that have described the last year could still turn into bad crime statistics. It's especially likely if, as some economists fear, the recovery fails to recoup hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been lost in such industries as car manufacturing and financial services.
That will mean the discrepancy between what many of us want and what we can get will deepen, social strain will increase, and maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, the other shoe will drop.
In the meantime, count your crime statistics blessings, but don't fool yourself: Crime and hard times do go hand in hand.
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grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com
