Matteo Sandi, one of our Data Impact Fellows, shares findings from his research into metal crime.
Sharp increases in commodity prices brought about a boom in metal crime in the UK since the early 2000s. Earlier in the current decade, a bust followed. Policing and policy played a key role in quelling the rise in the theft of metals in recent years. The response of the British Transport Police in 2012 reduced metal crime by an estimated 30%. The myanmar rcs data Scrap Metal Dealers Act of 2013 was also an effective deterrent, as it hindered the ease with which stolen metal can be sold.
These are among the findings of my research with Tom Kirchmaier, Stephen Machin and Robert Witt. We studied the roles of prices, policing and policy in shaping the metal crime boom and bust that took place in the UK in the nine years between 2007 and 2015.
Our results showed that prices, policing and policy have all mattered in shaping the boom and bust of metal crime. Its initial rise since the early 2000s into a crime boom in 2011 was caused by steep increases in commodity prices, and then the policing response and government policy led to a crime bust. This is probably one of the more extreme cases of a crime boom and bust on which there is evidence. But the basic notion of crime dynamics embodied in the boom and bust is a broader one that applies to other crimes.