A Study Of Demographic And Crime Issue In New York City (1980-2000)

Since the second world war, the situation of social security makes people worried in American. Crime rates remains high and residents, especially in some larger cities, lacking of the sensation of security. It is not only making the urban residents' normal life orders not guaranteed, but also hinders the economic development.as one of the largest cities in the United States, the condition of urban crime is worse. In the1980s,the crime rates of New York city decreased far more than the average of the whole country, violent activities, such as murder, robbery cases,frequent occur; and the economic crimes were more frequently, such as burglary, motor vehicle theft.In the 1990s,the city's crime rates didn't continue its chaos status as it was in the 1980s;on the contrary, the New York City's crime rates began to decline rapidly and the magnitude of the decline was on the top of the large American cities.Crime rates fell sharply in the New York City draw the U.S. criminologists and socialists great interest, they tried to explain why crime decline in the city from various fields. Among these, the socialists and criminologists sort out the most frequently cited reasons for the crime decline, including better policing strategies, increase in the number of police, the waning crack epidemic, strengthen the control to guns, the economic recovery and changing demographic. But there is still a tremendous debate in the academic around this issue. In this paper, I will combine the crime and population data to make the deep research on the furious dispute whether the demographic change can impact the crime rates, and have enlightened for sustainable development at present stage of China.Besides the introduction and conclusion, the text can be divided into 4 chapters.The First chapter detailed describes the mess conditions of social security and crime rates in the 1980s in New York City; when entered the 1990s, the city's crime activities reduced greatly, then compare the crime rates between the New York City and all the other large cities. In the end of the chapter, through research the distribution of population on crime to analysis the structure aspects.The second chapter mainly analysis the effect of the diversity change of racial structure on the crime rates in New York City. As the New Immigration law published, the racial structure appeared the new changes. The proportion of African-American and Hispanic population, especially the blacks in the total population declined. Considering there is a close link between race and crime and the crime rates of blacks is far higher than other ethnic population, so the racial structure change make the positive effect on the crime rates falling.The third chapter focuses on analysis the effect of demographic change on the crime rates between the 1980s and the 1990s. In the 1970s, New York City published the Legalization of Abortion and carried out this policy, which made the city's birth-rate drop sharply. Then it caused the proportion of the young people reduced which made the main parts of the crime population. So the reduction of the youth population helped the crime rates fall in New York City in the 1990s.The forth chapter mainly discusses the economic status of New York City population effect the crime rates. Since the 1970s, the city's economic structure appeared new changes, that is the status of traditional manufacturing industry declined, the third industry status raised which drive the city's economic recovery. In the 1990s, the economy has shown a rapid growth momentum. Some American scholars believe that the improvement of the city's economic conditions contribute to the significant decline in crime rates, but the research show that there is no indict link between unemployment rate and poverty rate and crime, while improve the health of the people make a major impact on crime dipping.The demographic structure change during the 1980s and the 1990s in New York City, in which the proportion of blacks and youth people decline helped to reduce the crime rates. And the improvement of population quality, in the economic transition, will make the contribution to crime dip, while poverty rate and unemployment rate has nothing to do with the crime activities. Finally, by analysis the impact of demographic change on crime in the last two decades in 20th. Century, we can see that the appropriate population policy may make the crime rate decline. So it is necessary to make the appropriate population policy in order to in favor of the urban sustainable development.