Urban

Housing Policy Crime:

Debate Issues and
• Volume Policies
7, Issue 4 731
731
© Fannie Mae Foundation 1996. All Rights Reserved.

Urban Crime: Issues and Policies

Ann Dryden Witte

Florida International University, Wellesley College,
and National Bureau of Economic Research

Abstract
Research suggests that some social and criminal justice policies can affect the
crime rate. This article considers the major criminal justice and social policy
issues related to urban crime, such as drugs, domestic violence, property
values, and the underground economy.

Family disruption, drugs, limited economic opportunities, and unoccupied and

unsupervised youth are all found to be associated with urban crime. The
article concludes that major reductions in crime are likely to result only from
increased economic and social opportunities for families and youth, particu-
larly for young males. Intensive programs directed at families and at-risk
youth are more likely to lower crime than are programs directed at people
already heavily involved in illegal activities. It costs less to keep young people
in education and training programs than to imprison them, and such programs
are more likely to produce productive and well-adjusted adults.

Keywords: Policy; Crime; Education

Introduction

Urban crime is a major issue for Americans. This is true even

though the most reliable evidence available, data from the Na-
tional Crime Survey, indicates that the level of crime is lower
today than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The amount
of crime is less for the most feared offenses, including rape,
aggravated assault, burglary, and larceny, as well as for less
serious offenses.1

The composition of crime has changed. While the overall murder

rate in the United States has declined since the late 1970s, the
murder rate for young males, particularly young black males,
has increased. Beginning in 1985, the murder victimization rate
for blacks ages 15 to 24 began to increase substantially. In the
late 1980s, the victimization rate for young blacks exceeded the
previous record levels of the early 1970s, and it has continued to
1 See Donohue and Siegelman (1994) for a compilation of crime statistics and a

well-informed discussion of various types of data on crime.

732 Ann Dryden Witte

increase during the 1990s. Murder victimization rates for white

males ages 15 to 24 began increasing only in the late 1980s, and
by the early 1990s they had returned to the rate of the late
1970s (Flanagan and Maguire 1994).

Between 1981 and 1990, arrests of those under 18 for murder

and nonnegligent manslaughter rose by more than 60 percent.
By 1990, 14 percent of all murders were committed by people
under age 18. It appears that although we are not experiencing
more violent crime, we are experiencing unusually high levels of
violent crime committed by young males. In 1990, 70 percent of
the people arrested in the United States were ages 16 to 34, and
more than 80 percent were male (Flanagan and Maguire 1994).

The political response to the urban crime problem has been

erratic and uncoordinated. During the 1980s, the federal govern-
ment vigorously pursued a “war on drugs.” Both states and the
federal government passed laws that mandated long prison
sentences without parole for many offenses. Three-strike laws
(mandating severe penalties for offenders after three convictions)
are the latest example of stringent sentencing policies. To house
those sentenced under these tough new laws, state governments
went on a prison-building spree, roughly tripling the number of
jail cells between 1970 and 1990.

Getting tough on crime probably bought us a somewhat lower

overall crime rate, but it did not secure an urban environment in
which most citizens feel safer. The level of violent crime commit-
ted by urban youth increased substantially. The overall reduc-
tion in crime was bought at a high price. Many careful observers
are now calling for a change in policy.2

Police are better educated and older; more diverse in gender,

race, and ethnicity; and more unionized. They make increasing
use of modern technology. Spending on police increased by ap-
proximately 50 percent in real terms between 1970 and 1990, but
the number of police officers barely kept pace with the popula-
tion (Flanagan and Maguire 1994). Police were increasingly
assigned to communities rather than to patrol cars as “commu-
nity policing” spread widely. Under community policing, police
returned to walking a beat, but their range of activities was
wider than that of the beat cops of the 1950s. The police in many

2The outline of one possible direction is reflected in the Violent Crime Control
and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. A quite different outline appears in the
congressional Republicans’ Contract with America (Gillespie and Schellhas
1994).
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 733

urban areas became spokespeople for the neighborhood through

local government bodies and assumed some roles normally re-
served for social workers. They helped to clean up neighbor-
hoods. They intervened in potentially crime-producing situations
(e.g., mediating family disputes, closing down crack houses for
code violations). They encouraged citizens, local businesses, and
neighborhood social and educational institutions to become
involved in crime control.

Policy issues arising from urban crime

Drugs and crime

In urban areas, it often appears that drugs and crime, particu-

larly violent crime, are inextricably linked. Drugs are typically
expensive and often reduce the user’s eligibility and motivation
to hold a job. The combination results in an increased proclivity
to commit crimes, which may turn violent. Because drugs are
traded in an underground economy, those who feel cheated in
transactions have no legal recourse and must take matters into
their own hands, often through violence. Turf wars break out
between drug providers operating in a regulatory and legal
vacuum, so the distribution of even relatively benign drugs such
as marijuana may precipitate violence.

Not all crime is associated with drug use. For example, although
the rise of crack cocaine during the 1980s appears to have in-
creased the level of urban violence, the major rise in youth crime
occurred after the crack epidemic had largely run its course.
Empirical explanations for this low correlation include a report
by Reuter, MacCoun, and Murphy (1990), who found that only
about a quarter of the dealers they studied were committing
property crimes and only 3 percent engaged in violent crime.
Reuter and his colleagues estimated that regular drug sellers
have only a 1 percent chance of being killed and a 7 percent
chance of being injured during a year, but a 22 percent chance of
being imprisoned.

While the wave of imprisonments for drug use and possession

that occurred during the 1980s has increased the riskiness of
drug dealing and may have contributed to the decline in drug
use that followed, this wave leveled off during the late 1980s
(Flanagan and Maguire 1994). Imprisonment of drug users and
drug dealers has bought us some decrease in crime, but at a high
price. These expenditures have had no apparent effect on youth
violence.
734 Ann Dryden Witte

Drug-related crime remains primarily an urban problem. Even

though many suburbanites use drugs at rates equivalent to those
of urbanites, the distribution of drugs often remains concen-
trated in cities. Neighborhoods like New York’s Washington
Heights, with access to the George Washington Bridge and the
suburbs of New Jersey beyond, are plagued by visitors in search
of drugs. Satisfying this suburban demand creates a major mar-
keting opportunity for local drug dealers. Competition to supply
the drugs can at times turn deadly and at the least erode the
civility of community life (Williams 1989).

Drug dealing, like most other criminal activity, is a young man’s

game. For young men with poor educational and job prospects,
dealing illegal drugs is an attractive high-risk, high-return way
of making money. However, recent research (e.g., Reuter,
MacCoun, and Murphy 1990) suggests that many of the stereo-
types of drug dealers are incorrect. For example, drug dealing is
generally not a full-time activity. Selling is most common in the
evenings and on weekends. Reuter, MacCoun, and Murphy
estimate that three-quarters of drug dealers have legitimate
employment and that less than 40 percent sell drugs daily.

The estimated median monthly earnings of drug dealers in

Washington, DC, during the late 1980s were approximately $700
per month, the same as their earnings from legitimate employ-
ment (Reuter, MacCoun, and Murphy 1990). The distribution of
earnings from drug sales is highly skewed. Most drug dealers
earn little, but a few earn a great deal. The illegal drug industry
is, however, big business. Carlson (1993) estimates that the
illegal market for cocaine in the United States yielded income of
more than $8 billion in 1991; the market for heroin, more than
$6 billion; and the market for marijuana, almost $8 billion.

Although “solving” the drug problem may help to alleviate the

crime problem, it will not end crime. Moreover, we must have
realistic expectations regarding the extent to which public policy
can solve the drug problem and the degree to which solving the
drug problem will lower the crime rate in urban areas.

People will always use drugs. As long as we make some drugs

illegal, illegal markets will arise to satisfy the demand. Public
policy and social change decreased drug use during the 1980s,
but substantial and lucrative markets for illegal drugs remain.
Given current drug laws, public policy can hope only to control
the size of the market and to mitigate the damage caused by the
drug market and drug use.
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 735

Public debate regarding drug laws has ossified. Rather than

carefully considering a broad range of drug policies, discussions
tend to focus on the extremes of legalization and criminalization
(e.g., see articles in Krauss and Lazear 1991). Fortunately, our
choices are broader. Possible drug policies are arrayed along two
spectra:

1. Tax treatment. Some drugs (e.g., prescription drugs and

over-the-counter drugs) are subject to no special tax treat-
ment, while others (alcohol and tobacco) are subject to excise
taxes. Illegal drugs are, of course, untaxed.

2. Governmental restrictions. At one end are over-the-counter

drugs that are subject to no restrictions on purchase or use.
Next come drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol that have
age restrictions on purchase. Other pharmaceuticals require
prescriptions for purchase. Some drugs, such as marijuana,
have either de facto or de jure freedom of use, but sale is
illegal. Finally, there are drugs such as cocaine and heroin
for which both use and sale are illegal.

We would be well advised when considering policy options for

particular drugs to consider a broad range of options for both
taxation and regulation.

The family and crime

The O. J. Simpson case focused public attention on domestic

violence. National victimization surveys indicate that more than
40 percent of violent crimes occur between related or romanti-
cally involved individuals (Flanagan and Maguire 1994). The
link between domestic problems and crime has long been a
concern of the police, but it has not figured prominently in dis-
cussions of urban crime.

Violence within the family (e.g., husbands’ assaults on wives,

parents’ assaults on children, children’s assaults on elderly
parents) is a major contributor to the urban crime problem.
Research suggests that higher levels of employment, particularly
for men, lead to lower levels of domestic violence. There are no
firm data on trends in the level of domestic violence (Tauchen
and Witte 1995; Tauchen, Witte, and Long 1991). More incidents
of domestic violence are now reported, but it is impossible to say
whether the level of domestic violence or only the level of report-
ing is increasing. Since levels of violence tend to be lower in
intact families, the increase in divorce and remarriage may have
736 Ann Dryden Witte

led to an increase in domestic violence (Tauchen, Witte, and

Long 1991).

Contrary to conventional wisdom, domestic violence does not

appear to be more common in low-income households if the
amount of employment is held constant. The Simpson case re-
flects two other important characteristics of domestic violence.
First, domestic violence is common even in high-income house-
holds. Second, assaults by men on their romantic partners ap-
pear to be more frequent when the partner differs substantially
in race, ethnicity, income, or education. Couples of mixed race or
ethnicity appear more likely to experience violence than other
couples. Also, women who earn more or who are better educated
than their male partners seem more likely to be victims, other
things being equal (Tauchen, Witte, and Long 1991).

Many police departments adopted a presumptive arrest policy for

domestic violence during the 1980s because an experiment in
Minneapolis showed that individuals arrested for domestic
violence were less likely to repeat their offense. The experiment
compared the effectiveness of arrest, counseling, and getting the
perpetrator out of the house for a cooling-off period. Arrest was
shown to be more effective than the other two responses to
domestic violence (Sherman 1992).

More recent work suggests that although arrest lowers the level
of violence in some settings, it raises it in others. Individuals
with strong ties to the community and more conforming lifestyles
seem to be deterred by arrest, but individuals who are more
alienated may increase their level of violence after arrest (see
Garner, Fagan, and Maxwell 1995 or Sherman 1992 for details).

Property values and crime

Crime is one of the major negative externalities that depress

property values in urban areas. Neighborhoods that experience
large increases in either violent or property crime generally have
declining property values. Housing prices also tend to decline in
neighborhoods where markets for illegal goods flourish. Neigh-
borhoods with depressed housing prices and abandoned build-
ings also frequently become havens for criminals and centers for
the illegal drug trade.

The flip side of this coin is that people are willing to pay for safe
homes and neighborhoods. They do this by choosing to live in
suburban areas and by paying high property taxes for good police
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 737

forces. They also increasingly do this by living in privately

guarded compounds or “gated communities.” Expenditures on
private security personnel have grown rapidly in the United
States since the 1960s.3

Crime and the ghetto

An important feature of U.S. urban areas is the existence of

ghettos (generally inhabited by people of similar racial, ethnic,
or national origins), where an underground economy tends to
flourish. Indeed, in some cases underground economic activity is
far more important than the legal economy in both the social and
economic life of the ghetto. The underground economy in the
ghetto, with its tenuous ties to legal institutions and its need for
secrecy, provides a congenial environment for criminal activity.

The underground economy can be divided into an informal sector

and an illegal sector. In the informal sector, perfectly legal goods
and services are bought and sold; however, the seller either is
not properly registered or licensed or does not pay taxes. In the
ghetto, such activity ranges from small factories producing
clothing with the help of illegal Latin American or Asian immi-
grants to unlicensed barbers or beauticians cutting the hair of
friends and neighbors. Such activity flourishes in distressed
neighborhoods because the level of “unemployment” is high and
because low incomes force ghetto residents to use low-cost pro-
viders. Inner-city markets are often wide open to informal sup-
pliers because many firms in the formal sector do not wish to
provide goods and services in low-income areas. The illegal
sector of the underground economy consists of activities that are
against the law, such as drug dealing, prostitution, or defrauding
government benefit programs.

Studies indicate that the majority of economic activity in the

Watts area of Los Angeles is either illegal or informal. Studies of
New York City suggest that the informal economy grew rapidly
during the 1980s.4

An important part of the illegal sector is the drug trade, often

organized around urban gangs. Gangs maintain a complicated
relationship with the neighborhoods where they deal drugs.
3 See Flanagan and Maguire (1994) for police statistics and Long and Witte

(1980) for a survey of the effect of crime on property values.

4 Pozo (1993, 1996) and Sassen-Koob (1989) discuss the underground economy

in urban areas.
738 Ann Dryden Witte

After a multiyear, multicity ethnographic study, Jankowski

(1991, 210) concludes that “in those neighborhoods where gangs
operate, the gang and the community have established a working
relationship.” He further notes that “this relationship is predi-
cated on a number of exchange relationships in which the gang
and the community provide each other with certain services.”

Gangs contribute countless dollars to local commerce and serve

as local militias that attempt to control some of the spillover
crimes associated with drug use, such as break-ins and
muggings. Many inner-city communities, in turn, give gangs
sanctuary from civil authority and often legitimize them by
conferring status on their members. In short, the relationship
between gangs and the ghetto may be more symbiotic than
adversarial, and this relationship often hinders crime and drug
prevention efforts.

Public policies affecting crime

Public policies that affect urban crime are of two distinct types.
First, there is a whole set of social policies (e.g., drug treatment
policies, child welfare policies, jobs policies) that affect crime
either directly or indirectly. Second, there is criminal justice
policy aimed at preventing crime when possible and apprehend-
ing and punishing criminals.

Research suggests that some social policies and some criminal

justice policies can reduce the crime rate. Among social policies,
efforts to provide meaningful activities (e.g., jobs, schools, educa-
tion) to young males, particularly minority males, and preven-
tive or supportive programs, particularly programs directed to
young children and their families, can reduce crime. There is
also evidence that structured, community-oriented, and value-
centered schools can improve educational performance and lower
levels of juvenile delinquency (Mandel 1995; Witte 1996).

Among criminal justice policies, both police resources and police

policies can deter crime, but the effect is not large (Tauchen and
Witte 1994). Prisons can incapacitate offenders, but they do not
appear to deter them significantly. The effect of this incapacita-
tion on the crime rate depends on the rate at which new offend-
ers take the places of incarcerated offenders on the street.

While early intervention appears most successful, some intensive

programs for at-risk youth have been shown to be effective, and
research suggests that keeping young people busy with legal
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 739

activities can reduce crime (Witte and Tauchen 1994). The Job
Corps, which places at-risk young people in residential, struc-
tured work and educational programs, has significantly reduced
the level of crime of participants. Research suggests that good
jobs, good education, and structured social (including religious)
activities can lower the level of crime among the young. A strict,
caring, value-centered learning environment such as that found
in good parochial schools also seems to increase educational
attainment and reduce juvenile delinquency.5

It is important to note that the term “criminal justice system” is

a misnomer. No such system exists. Rather, there is a hodge-
podge of criminal justice agencies at various levels of govern-
ment. Crime prevention is largely a police function and the
responsibility of local government. Punishment for crimes is
meted out by the courts and correctional agencies, which are
generally part of state government. The federal government has
a limited role: It is responsible for interstate and international
crimes, it supports research on the causes of crime and the
operation of criminal justice agencies, and it provides funds and
seeks to affect nationwide criminal justice policy.

Local government policies affecting crime

Many local governments have programs designed to keep young

people busy, particularly during the summer. As far as I am
aware, there has been no systematic evaluation of such pro-
grams. However, research suggests a number of reasons such
programs might be successful and finds that young men who are
busy working or going to school commit fewer offenses.

The British are using such programs explicitly for crime control.
For example, the local council in Lutton paid for youth clubs in
its high-crime public housing and experienced a decline in crime
while the rest of England experienced an increase. Bristol and
Kirklees, West Yorkshire, set up summer programs for 11- to
16-year-olds in high-crime areas and found that crime declined
about 30 percent from previous summers. A scheme in Bolton to
encourage young street children to join sports, arts, or counsel-
ing groups greatly reduced nuisance calls to the police. In the
United States, the Children at Risk (CAR) program keeps youth
busy in after-school and summer programs that divert time and
energy from delinquency. Preliminary results show significant

5 See Witte (1996) for a survey and Harrell (1995) for a preliminary report of a

comprehensive program for at-risk youth.

740 Ann Dryden Witte

decreases in juvenile arrests and convictions for the experimen-

tal group (Harrell 1995).

The effect of police departments on crime depends on both the

level of police resources and the way resources are used. Appre-
hension is more likely when the police respond rapidly, and
rapid apprehension is a stronger deterrent than apprehension
long after the crime has been committed. Modern technology
allows 911 calls to be handled far more expeditiously than in the
past. Still, the proportion of crimes solved by the police (the
clearance rate) remains low. For example, the police make an
arrest for less than one-sixth of burglaries (Flanagan and
Maguire 1994).

The 1980s saw a number of changes in policing:

1. As noted earlier, many police departments adopted commu-

nity policing. Research shows that with community policing
people feel safer and neighborhoods can improve. Yet com-
munity policing does not appear to decrease crime rates.

2. Computer analyses of police data identified “hot spots” from

which there were frequent calls to the police. Police allo-
cated more resources to those hot spots, and such calls
declined. However, crime appears to have been displaced to
other areas rather than suppressed.

3. As noted earlier, some police departments made arrest the

presumptive response to domestic violence, but recent re-
search has called this policy into question.

State policies affecting crime

The state generally provides substantial money for education,

administers welfare programs, seeks to stimulate economic
growth and development, regulates the provision of child care,
decides what is illegal, and runs the courts and prisons. State
social and development expenditures have not generally been
aimed at reducing crime, and I am not aware of studies that
assess their impact on crime.

State governments can most easily lower the crime rate by

legalizing some things. For example, a number of states have
effectively decriminalized the use of marijuana, but the current
political atmosphere makes it unlikely that legalization will be
pursued on any substantial scale.
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 741

Legalization is not a possibility for violent crimes or major prop-

erty crimes such as burglary, robbery, and larceny. The state
tries to deter such offenses by running a court system that deter-
mines who is guilty; setting punishments for convicted offenders;
and running probation, prison, and parole departments to carry
out sentences that restrict offenders’ freedom.

During the past decade, we have moved from a system domi-

nated by indeterminate sentences that allowed early release for
prisoners who behaved well in prison to a system dominated by
long, determinate sentences. This change has swelled our prison
population with inmates who have longer sentences and no hope
of parole. Between 1975 and 1990, the number of prison inmates
with sentences of one year or more nearly tripled (Flanagan and
Maguire 1994).

We have also radically changed the way we allocate the ever-

growing number of prison spaces. In 1974, 52 percent of prison-
ers had been convicted for violent offenses, 31 percent for
property offenses, and 10 percent for drug offenses. By 1988,
30 percent of new court commitments to prison were for violent
offenses, 37 percent for property offenses, and 25 percent for
drug offenses. We substantially increased the proportion of
prison spaces allocated to drug offenders and decreased the
proportion allocated to violent offenders. Although prison sen-
tences do keep offenders off the streets, drug dealers, even at the
wholesale level, are replaced quite quickly. Violent offenders are
replaced more slowly. Allocating more prison resources to drug
rather than violent offenders decreases the level of incapacita-
tion obtained per dollar spent. Many states are now changing
policy and reserving an increasing proportion of prison spaces for
violent offenders (Flanagan and Maguire 1994).

More worrisome still is the fact that an increasing proportion of

state expenditures is going to prisons and a declining proportion
to higher education. During the 1970s and 1980s, total public
expenditures on education grew by a factor of four and one-half,
while expenditures on the criminal justice system grew by a
factor of six (Flanagan and Maguire 1994). During the same
period, public expenditure on public colleges and universities
grew by 78 percent, while expenditures on corrections grew by
almost 900 percent. In 1990, it cost an average of $9,442 per year
to send a young person to a higher educational institution and
$25,496 per year to keep a young person in prison. The states
increasingly emphasize imprisoning rather than educating young
people.
742 Ann Dryden Witte

Federal policies affecting crime

The federal government provides substantial money for early

childhood education and family interventions through its match-
ing funds program and Head Start. Head Start has been ex-
panded in recent years, but it still serves only 28 percent of
eligible children, at a cost of $2.2 billion per year. Further, and
more important from a crime control perspective, Head Start has
not been shown to reduce juvenile delinquency, possibly because
it is only a one-year program for many participants and because
the family-support part of the program has been weak (Zigler,
Taussig, and Black 1992).

The federal government has also funded what might best be

termed demonstration projects for juveniles, such as the Job
Corps (discussed earlier).

The federal criminal justice system deals mainly with interstate

and international offenses that have little relevance to the urban
crime problem. Under the auspices of the war on drugs, the
federal government has used the military and other resources to
try to interdict international drug shipments (generally ineffec-
tively) and has loaded the federal prisons with drug offenders.
Today more than 50 percent of federal prisoners are in prison for
drug offenses (Flanagan and Maguire 1994).

The federal government supports (at a declining level) research

on crime, delinquency, and the criminal justice system. The
results of such research may be important in determining state
and local policies. For example, longitudinal studies have shown
that a small number of high-rate offenders are responsible for a
disproportionate number of offenses (Tauchen and Witte 1994),
and experiments on police handling of domestic violence have
altered the way police handle such incidents (Garner, Fagan,
and Maxwell 1995).

Finally, the federal government provides funds to state and local

criminal justice agencies. For example, the Violent Crime Con-
trol and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 proposes spending
$9 billion to help local police departments hire 100,000 new
officers (although the actual number hired is far lower). Re-
search suggests that these federal initiatives may be fruitful
avenues for criminal justice policy (Donohue and Siegelman
1994; Tauchen and Witte 1994).
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 743

New directions for public policy toward urban crime

Criminal justice policies

During the past decade, we have greatly increased the propor-

tion of criminal justice resources allocated to prisons. Between
1970 and 1990, while the number of prison cells roughly tripled,
the number of police officers remained approximately constant
(Flanagan and Maguire 1994).

Research suggests that building more prisons is not the most

effective use of criminal justice dollars. Incarceration does not
appear to significantly decrease either the postrelease criminal
activities of those incarcerated (specific deterrence) or the level
of crime in most urban communities (general deterrence).

The crime-reducing effect of increased expenditures on police has

more research support. Such increases do seem to deter young
men from committing crimes, but the effect on crime is not large
(Tauchen and Witte 1994). Still, increased spending on police
will likely have a larger effect on crime than increased spending
on prison cells.6

Most citizens do not like to see drug dealing in urban streets.

Random violence among dealers and the vacant stares and
hyperactivity of drug users make the streets more threatening.
However, most citizens fear violent crime aimed at the general
public far more than they fear drug dealing or the negative
externalities it produces. Both these public attitudes and re-
search suggest that it may be time to reallocate criminal justice
resources from drug dealing to violent crime. Some states are
now beginning to reallocate prison resources to violent offenders.
There may be a hidden crime-reduction benefit in using more of
the new prison cells to house violent offenders, who are not as
quickly or completely replaced with new offenders as drug deal-
ers are.

What are we going to do with convicted drug dealers if we do not

put them in prison? I would suggest that many drug dealers, and
indeed many property offenders, can best be punished with fines
and electronic surveillance. With new monitoring technology, the
movements of convicted offenders can be followed carefully while
they are on the street. They can be picked up if they are found
to be at the scene of a burglary or at known centers of drug

6 Campbell (1994) discusses the effect of police on crime.

744 Ann Dryden Witte

distribution. Fines collected from the offenders could be used to

pay surveillance costs or restitution for victims.

In the long run, we may want to rethink our laws regarding

“victimless” crimes such as drug use. For example, we could
consider decriminalizing the less virulent drugs, such as mari-
juana. There are precedents for this in the repeal of Prohibition
during the 1930s and the more recent legalization, and state
provision, of gambling.

Policies for at-risk youth

Growing up poor in U.S. urban areas has never been easy, but
the situation facing young, urban Americans has deteriorated
since the 1960s and early 1970s. Urban schools, particularly in
distressed neighborhoods, are more often settings for violence
and drug dealing than for education. Traditional education, even
at its best, ill prepares young people for the high-tech, rapidly
changing workplace of today. Respected authority, legitimate
role models, supervision by adults, and close, caring relation-
ships with adults are scarce in distressed neighborhoods. Struc-
tured, legal leisure activities are rare, but the streets provide a
range of illegal and semilegal ways of killing time and even
making money.

Few programs for at-risk youth have been shown to be effective,

with the notable exception of the Job Corps (described earlier).
Funds are unlikely to be available to remove a large proportion
of at-risk youth from their neighborhoods. It is not even clear
that this would be desirable on a large scale. What are we to do
with the youth who remain in the difficult environment of the
inner city? I think we have no choice but to make some changes
in the environment, beginning with schools. Considerable re-
search suggests that structured, value-oriented education and
education that seeks close ties with families can improve the
lives of at-risk youth. It may be time to invest in such education
rather than traditional public high schools. New York City has
experimented with alternative school settings, and the CAR
program has shown preliminary success in diverse low-income
settings (Harrell 1995).

Research also suggests that it is important to keep young people

busy doing something legal that interests and engages them.
Youth who spend more time working and at school have lower
levels of criminal activity, even after controlling for a large
number of other factors. Also, inner-city youth who are involved
 Urban Crime: Issues and Policies 745

in church activities or who attend parochial schools have lower

levels of criminal activity and are more likely to escape poverty
than youth who are not so involved. The British experience
and preliminary CAR results cited above suggest that well-
structured summer programs may be effective both in making
the streets more pleasant and in lowering crime. (See Witte and
Tauchen 1994 for evidence regarding the effect of work and
schooling on crime.)

Even intensive interventions with preadolescent or adolescent

youth who already have problems can be expected to produce
only limited benefits. Larger benefits may come only if we begin
interventions much earlier.

A better start

Small-scale studies have shown that intensive early interven-

tions that combine early childhood education with family support
and education in parenting can reduce juvenile delinquency. Suc-
cessful programs work with at-risk parents and children for at least
two years before children enter school; provide high-quality infant,
day-care, or preschool programs for children; provide informational
and emotional support on child-development and child-rearing
issues for parents; provide prenatal and postnatal health care;
and either provide vocational counseling or training or make
sure that they are available for parents.

Such programs are expensive, but not as expensive as effective

programs for juveniles or the criminal justice system’s costs of
dealing with crime after it has occurred. The lesson here, as in
other areas of policy, is that prevention works and is generally
cheaper than dealing with problems after their inception.7

Head Start is a step in the right direction, but it is too small, has
too few services, and is too brief to change the lives of the chil-
dren it enrolls. Current research suggests that the most effective
long-term programs to combat crime within the context of the
existing health and welfare policies, the child’s family life, and
the current economic situation will be intensive programs for at-
risk children and their families that begin before or shortly after
a child is born.

7 Zigler, Taussig, and Black (1992) discuss the effect of early childhood

interventions.
746 Ann Dryden Witte

Conclusions

Crime rates are now declining in U.S. urban areas. There is

much debate as to why this is the case. Some claim that the
decline is attributable mainly to the “get tough” crime policy of
the 1980s, while others claim it is attributable mainly to a de-
cline in the number of young people and to a calming of the drug
turf wars. On balance, research suggests that most of the drop in
crime stems from a decrease in the number of young people and
from increased police effectiveness.

The rate of violent crime among young males has risen substan-
tially in recent years. We do not know the reason for this in-
crease, but it seems likely to have arisen from a number of
sources: disorganized communities, dysfunctional families, and
decreased economic and educational opportunities. An effective
attack on the youth crime problem may involve the criminal
justice system only as a backup. Intensive work with at-risk
families, organized community activities, and better educational
and economic opportunities may provide a more effective front-
line attack. The relative costs of education and imprisonment
certainly suggest that reallocation of resources from imprison-
ment to education and training is worthwhile.

Author
Ann Dryden Witte is Professor of Economics at Florida International Univer-
sity and Wellesley College. She is a member of the National Bureau of Eco-
nomic Research’s Program in Public Economics and Program in Labor Studies.

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