Here's why property crime and violent crime have different solutions

Here’s why property crime and violent crime have different solutions

We can see it in the local news, and we sense it when we walk or drive through our communities: Some neighborhoods are more crime-ridden than others. But why do some blocks seem to attract thefts, assaults and shootings, and what can be done to make everyone safer?

Two economists working in very different cities have explored the motivations and triggers behind different types of crime to try to get at answers. University of Chicago researcher Jens Ludwig and Kevin Schnepel at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Metro Vancouver, have found that poverty and economic desperation can drive property crime, specifically theft and burglary. But violent crime, they say — the type of crime that causes