International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 13

The Cyclical Evolution of Homicides and Security
During the 1980s and 1990s, a sharp increase in the quality and quantity of
private security staff and security technologies exerted downward pressure on property
crime (Cusson 2010). In the United States, security spending tripled during this time,
while staff and security guards became more professional. Alarm systems proliferated
and became more and more effective. Video-surveillance systems were installed in
stores, banks, shopping malls, streets, warehouses, parking lots. Access-control systems
helped monitor customers as they entered or left stores, banks, libraries, office blocks.
In England, Farrell et al. (2014) attributed the decline in burglaries since 1995
to the spread of household-protection systems, including sophisticated alarm systems,
double-glazed windows with better locking devices, movement detectors, and security
lighting. In the case of car thefts, they stressed more effective and widespread vehiclesecurity
technologies, since 1993: central locking, alarms, electronic immobilizers,
and tracking devices for tracing stolen vehicles. The upsurge in these security systems
was closely followed by a drop in thefts in and of motor vehicles.
While technology and the security forces were cutting down opportunities for
theft, the lifestyle of teenagers and young adults changed, bringing about a tightening
of the family controls that had been eased in the preceding period. Indeed, during
the exciting years from 1960 to 1980, young people went out in the evening to drink,
dance, and fight. For some, theft had funded their party lifestyle. As of the 1990s, more
and more young people were spending time at their computers, tablets, and video
games. They became homebodies. Since they stayed inside most of the time, they had
fewer opportunities to join a gang. This reconfiguration of lifestyles and social controls
drove down burglaries, car thefts, and robberies, but cybercrime came into being.
In what follows, I intend to move to a more general level and, by building on
what has gone before, to put forward a general theory of the crime rates cycles.
Hypotheses for a Theory of Crime Cycle
The model assumes that the most serious and best-measured crime categories
tend to fluctuate in parallel. Indeed, in most Western countries, homicide, robbery
with violence, and burglaries decline in the same years. This appears to mean that there
are factors at work that apply to crime in general rather than specific factors that apply
solely to individual categories of infraction. Three hypotheses help us understand the
pattern of cyclical developments in crime and security.
A. Mutual adaptation. Offenders adapt to security measures and security officers
adapt to crime. Thieves behave in an adapted fashion when they exploit a weakness
such as poor locks. The incidence of thefts will fall if a response can be found—better
locks, alarm systems, and so forth—until such time as the thieves find a way around
the problem. On the other hand, rising crimes challenge security professionals so they
seek solutions. By the same logic, during declining crime, the security operatives relax:
Why worry about a problem already solved?
B. Security excesses in one direction lead to excesses in the opposite direction,
resulting in alternations of too much and two little security. Too much crime generates
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