Economy fuels rise in crime, police say

Consumer desperation, anger, and frustration might also be the root cause of several other trends, police say: an increase in domestic violence, a proliferation of scams, and a greater willingness to buy wares such as iPods and GPS devices from pawn shops instead of retail stores - a choice that helps drive the underground economy.

Lawrence police saw the number of home burglaries jump 52 percent, to 514, in 2008. In Lowell, larcenies and thefts went up 21 percent to 2,290 last year. In Hingham, reports of domestic violence between October 2008 and February 2009 increased 62 percent, compared with the same time period a year earlier, rising from 35 to 57. One recent case involved a man who is accused of assaulting his wife after being been laid off from his $200,000-a-year job, said Hingham police Lieutenant Michael Peraino.

"People are facing foreclosures so they're having money issues and some people have to cut back on their lifestyles," Peraino said. "They're fighting and they drink and it escalates into somebody assaulting the other."

The connection between crime and the economy has always come with caveats. Although most police officials and criminologists agree that a recession usually leads to a rise in property crimes, many say that every crime is triggered by a variety of societal and personal pressures that cannot be explained by any single factor.

In Boston, major crimes are down citywide, but some sections have seen jumps in auto thefts, burglaries, and robberies. Commissioner Edward F. Davis said the economy is a likely cause, though the drug trade and chronic poverty also play key roles.

"I think it just makes sense that people who are out of work or who are stressed in one way or another are more likely to act out or commit a crime," he said. "But I don't think it's as much of a driving factor as drug addiction.

Police departments say they have noticed not only a startling increase in some statistics, but more unusual crimes coming across the scanner.

In Ludlow, the same bank was robbed twice in 13 months, an aberration for a small town that had not had a bank robbery in two decades. In New Bedford, detectives are dealing with dozens of complaints from people who lost of thousands of dollars in scams that promised cash prizes. In Quincy, thieves stole three snowplow blades in one weekend last December, most likely, detectives say, because they needed to replace their own blade or wanted sell the piece to other drivers.

"I've been a police officer for 25 years and I've never seen a snowplow stolen," Quincy police Captain John Dougan said. "My best educated guess is the economy has something to do with it."

Last year, Ludlow had 62 cases of fraud, more than twice the cases reported in 2007. The scams, police said, usually worked like this: Someone offered to buy an item off eBay. The buyer sent a check that seemed too big, asked the seller to cash the check, keep some of the money for his trouble, and send the rest of the cash back to the buyer. The seller later learned the check was counterfeit, but not before sending the cash back to the scammer, said Detective David Kornacki.

"We just can't put a lid on that stuff," he said. "It's completely out of control."

Various cities and towns reported an uptick in drug arrests and forged prescriptions, which led some officials to theorize that economic hard times are causing people to seek an escape through drugs.

Programs that aid battered women have also been receiving more calls for help, said Toni Troop, spokeswoman for Jane Doe Inc., a statewide coalition of organizations against domestic violence.

During hard economic times "there are fewer options for the women to leave," she said. "And if there is unemployment, there is more opportunity [for an abuser] to be present."

Although domestic violence is more about exerting control than expressing anger or frustration, the loss of a job can cause an abuser to become even more violent, Troop said.

"When someone is feeling out of control and losing control in another part of their life they're looking for a place to assert that power and control," she said.

Reports of child abuse are also dramatically higher. The Suffolk district attorney's office reviewed 256 cases between Jan. 1 and March 1, more than double the 105 cases reported during the same two-month period in 2008.

The same financial pressures that might be driving the increase in certain crimes have been forcing many police departments to cut back on spending, making the trends particularly unsettling for law enforcement leaders.

Lowell police Superintendent Kenneth E. Lavallee said that the city manager has asked him to slash $2 million from his $22 million budget for the fiscal 2010 budget.

"It's like a perfect-storm scenario," Lavallee said. "The economy goes sour. Crime potentially goes up and our staffing goes down."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.