The United States is recovering from a broad recession that is considered the longest-lasting economic downturn since World War II. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) determined that the recession officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, followed by a period of recovery. While NBER declared an end to the recession, it has not reported favorable economic conditions or a return to economic strength. The United States remains in a period of recovery—what some have characterized as slow and uneven. Various indicators of economic strength, such as the unemployment rate and foreclosures, reached their worst showings in decades during the recession and the following months. While some newspapers across the country have published stories linking the depressed economy with localized increases in crime, others have reported decreases in crime. The current state of the economy has continued to spark debate concerning whether economic factors can affect crime. Any increase in crime rates during a period of economic uncertainty could exacerbate an already difficult situation for communities across the United States. Congress has voiced concern over this issue and deliberated funding for federal programs that provide support for state and local law enforcement agencies. Advocates of increasing funding for state and local law enforcement assistance believe that additional funding is needed for a number of reasons, including that crime rates tend to increase during periods of economic uncertainty and that state law enforcement agencies facing budget cuts may be forced to stop hiring new officers or filling vacated positions. Opponents of this funding argue that there is no documented link between economic downturns and increases in crime rates, and that the federal grant programs in question are inefficient. This report examines the relationships between selected variables of economic strength and crime. It begins with an overview of crime rates during times of economic recession in the United States. It then reviews the existing literature in the field analyzing various data sets that examine whether the unemployment rate and foreclosures can be related to increases in the national crime rate. This report focuses primarily on national-level data rather than on state- or local-level data. Because of the aggregation of national-level data, local trends may be lost. Therefore, this report presents a picture of the relationship between crime and economic indicators for the nation as a whole, but it does not discuss these relationships that may exist at the state or local level. Further, conclusions drawn about the relationship between national crime rates and economic variables may not be able to be generalized to the relationship between the economy and crime in all states and localities around the country. In essence, there may exist a relationship between the economy and crime in specific areas of the country, even if this relationship is not visible at the national level. The report also considers other economic indicators that may warrant further research with respect to their relationship with crime. Lastly, the report raises several issues that Congress may debate should it consider the relationship between the current state of economic recovery and crime, including whether crime rates are related to periods of economic turmoil and whether hiring additional police officers can reduce crime. According to NBER, "[a] recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators. A recession begins when the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends when the economy reaches its trough." NBER has identified seven recessions in the United States since 1960. Figure 1 and Figure 2 illustrate the violent and property crime rates, respectively, from 1960 through 2009. Both figures identify each of the seven recessions identified by NBER. In general, property crime rates increased fairly steadily from the early 1960s through the mid-1980s and violent crime rates continued to increase through the early 1990s. Both property crime and violent crime rates have generally been decreasing since the early 1990s. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show that, since 1960, there has been no consistent relationship between periods of economic recession and the crime rates. While the violent crime and property crime rates did increase during some recessions (generally in the 1970s), during others they either remained relatively stable or actually decreased. CRS was unable to find any literature examining potential links between recessions in the United States and crime rates. Instead, the literature in the field tends to focus on the impact that macroeconomic trends have on crime rates. With a recession defined as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy," this leaves open the possibility that any number or combination of economic variables may be affected in a recession. It also suggests that no two recessions may be the same, and thus some economic variables may be at greater flux during some recessions than during others. This poses challenges in analyzing the relationship between recessions—in general—and crime. Consequently, researchers tend to use individual economic indicators, such as the unemployment rate, as a proxy for the state of the economy. However, any given indicator may not be generalizable to the state of the economy as a whole during any one given recession or across recessions. Despite the limitations in using specific economic variables as proxies for a complex economic state, this methodology does allow researchers to isolate variables and analyze their individual effects. Specifically, during the most recent economic downturn, many referred to the unemployment rate and the proportion of home foreclosures as proxies for economic health. The following sections will examine these particular economic indicators in order to see whether they can be linked to changes in the crime rates. The unemployment rate is one of the most widely referenced economic indicators. In discussions of potential impacts of the economy on crime rates, many scholars and policy makers use the unemployment rate as a proxy for economic strength. Congress has shown interest in the relationship between the economy—unemployment, in particular—and crime rates since the 1970s. The most recent recession, which was accompanied by a rise in the unemployment rate, once again focused attention on the relationship between unemployment and crime rates. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the beginning of the most recent recession in December 2007, the national unemployment rate was 5.0%. This rate continued to increase throughout the recession, reaching 9.5% at the official end of the recession in June 2009. This rate grew further and peaked at 10.1% in October 2009 before decreasing slightly. The most recent data indicates that unemployment in November 2012 was at 7.7%. The current unemployment rate represents the highest level of unemployment in the United States since the early 1990s. Researchers and scholars have several theories concerning the relationship between unemployment and crime. One of these theories, the economic theory of crime, assumes that people make rational choices between legitimate activities and criminal activities as a source of economic gain. More specifically, the comparison is between the economic benefit of legitimate work versus that of violent or property crime, after accounting for crime-related costs such as incarceration. Although the theory was originally formulated with an application to all crimes, many researchers have used it in discussions of unemployment and property crime. This theory predicts a positive correlation between unemployment and property crime; in other words, that increases in the unemployment rate will be correlated with increases in property crime rates. The reason for this positive correlation, according to the economic model, is that during periods when there are fewer opportunities for legitimate income, people may turn to illegal activities, while when more jobs are available, the risks of committing a crime may be weighed against the opportunity for legitimate work. A second theory factors both the motivation to commit crimes as well as the opportunities available to commit crimes. On one hand, this theory concurs with the economic theory of crime in predicting that the unemployment rate may be positively correlated with the crime rates because of increased criminal motivation (with potential benefits of legitimate work weighed against potential costs of crime). However, the theory simultaneously predicts that unemployment may be negatively correlated with the property crime rate, because during periods of increasing unemployment, there may be decreased criminal opportunities for reasons including that potential targets/victims may also be unemployed and thus better able to guard their property. Similarly, the theory predicts that unemployment may be negatively correlated with the violent crime rate using two assumptions: (1) during periods of unemployment, individuals may have more time to spend in situations (i.e. home and neighborhood) where people may be more close-knit, and (2) violent crimes more often involve casual acquaintances or strangers rather than individuals with close relations (based on Department of Justice and Uniform Crime Report data). If unemployment had an equal effect on increasing criminal motivation and decreasing criminal opportunity, this theory would predict no correlation between unemployment and crime rates. If the effects on increased motivation were stronger than the effects on decreased opportunity, this theory would predict (as does the economic model of crime) a positive correlation between unemployment and the property crime rate. A number of studies analyzing the relationship between unemployment and crime rates tend to find small statistically significant correlations between unemployment and the property crime rate but not between unemployment and the violent crime rate. During congressional hearings on unemployment and crime in 1979 and 1981, Congress heard testimony that there is a positive, but generally insignificant, relationship between unemployment and crime rates, and that this relationship holds true more often for the property crime rate than for the violent crime rate. A review of the literature found large disparities in the magnitude of the correlation between unemployment and the property crime rate. Some researchers found a small relationship (unemployment accounts for about 2% of the change in the property crime rate); other researchers found a large relationship (unemployment may account for up to 40% of the change in the property crime rate), while still others found no relationship. Steven Levitt examined empirical studies on the relationship between unemployment and the property crime rate between 1973 and 2001. Assimilating the findings across five studies including his own research, Levitt concluded that controlling for other factors, almost all of these studies report a statistically significant but substantively small relationship between unemployment rates and property crime. A typical estimate would be that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with about a one percent increase in property crime.