John Lloyd on the impact of economic recession on politics and crime

John Lloyd, co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, has written two articles (January 12 and January 20) on the impact of the economic recession on politics and crime, both available on the Fin24.com website .

In the first article he analyses the impact of the recession on the US, France, UK and especially Italy. He says that signs point to a great struggle ahead, in Italy and in much of the rest of the West. It brings together the terrible dilemmas of a European continent now facing, especially in its most pressurised countries of the south, a root-and-branch reconstruction of its welfare systems, its public provision of health and education, and its labour laws and customs. The full article can be read here.

In the second article, he looks at the relationship between crime levels and the economic crisis. Contrary to common wisdom, he finds that crime in the United States for example, has not increased despite unemployment remaining high. A number of structural, cultural and policy reasons may be responsible for this. However, analysing the job market that the young are likely to face for a long time to come, he concludes that long-term, chronic unemployment for young men with few prospects and little shape to their lives strikes me as a big challenge to a trend of declining crime. This is even more the case because criminality in the world especially in organised-crime gangs and in corruption networks isnt declining: indeed, globally its leaping ahead. The full article can be read here.