San Diego workers are being laid off at twice as fast a rate, compared to just one year ago. This may lead some to assume that more people down on their luck would be tempted into a life of crime in order to survive. Not so, say several experts.
"People don't suddenly start to decide, 'because I don't have an income, I'm going to become a criminal,' anymore than the guy on the street is going to decide, ‘I'm going to invest in the stock market.’ They don't know how to do it," says San Diego State criminal justice professor Stuart Henry.
Deputy D.A. Summer Stephan, who heads the District Attorney's North County branch, agrees.
"We have not seen an increase in crime in the North County area, which of course is a large area, it covers one million of our three million population. So it's a good sampling of how our county looks," said Stephan.
The District Attorney’s North County Office has noted a slight increase in real estate fraud, but otherwise says the crime rate is steady.
"And looking at the last three years we really don't see any spikes this year. In fact, for the last six months, our statistics, in terms of misdemeanors and felonies, are within about 50 cases from the past two years," said Stephan.
And according to the San Diego Association of Governments, both violent and property crimes rates in the region decreased in the last year to 25-year lows. SANDAG statistics show robberies in the region decreased eight percent, compared to the year before. Robbery rates had been going up the past five years before that.
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"People don't know how to commit crime, they don't think in terms of that. They don't change their ethics and morality just because the economy is bad," Henry says.
