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NAPLES — From his Golden Gate home, 42-year-old Dave Dimond has had a front-row seat to the downturn of the U.S. economy.

The streets around Golden Gate are dotted with ‘For Sale’ signs. Abandoned homes are easy to spot by their unkempt lawns and boarded up windows.

An unemployed construction manager, Dimond said his neighborhood on 41st Terrace Southwest took a turn for the worse in recent months, to the point that he is no longer comfortable with his 12-year-old son riding his bicycle in the area.

Two doors down, a once bustling home with people in and out at 2085 41st Terrace S.W. is now marked by knee-high grass and weeds. Wooden planks are nailed over the windows.

“Some of the drug users are probably using it to hide away and do drugs,” he said.

Dimond, for one, isn’t optimistic that things in his neighborhood are going to improve anytime soon.

“The lack of work is going to lead people to get desperate,” he said. “They’re going to have to turn to crime to survive.”

Though the correlation isn’t exact, most experts believe that crime does, in fact, increase during difficult economic times. It remains to be seen how much crime will increase in Southwest Florida, if at all, as the economy continues to sour, but local officials say they’re doing what they can to keep criminals at bay.

“Things are very good here and we want it to remain that way,” Collier Sheriff Don Hunter said.

Feeding the Frenzy

David Lounsbury, a criminal forensics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, said there are three basic motivations for crime — need, greed and lust. Greed and lust crimes will be committed regardless of the economic situation, but Lounsbury said that as the economy worsens, crimes of need will most likely increase.

Lounsbury predicts “all sorts of weird stuff” will be the result of the souring economy, including increases in property crime, fraud, and suicides. The dominoes may start to fall this winter, he said, if the tourism industry suffers.

“I think it’s too early for us yet,” Lounsbury said. “I don’t think we’ve had the impact.”

The downturn in the economy could result in a heightened sense of desperation in the community, Hunter said. He suspects property crimes would be the first to increase.

“What we would expect is with the downturn, there is far greater self-medication of depression with drugs and alcohol,” he said.

Theoretically, people who self-medicate won’t perform as well at work, Hunter said, leading to more problems that end with even more self-medication.

“It all feeds into itself,” Hunter said.

In Lee County, Sheriff Mike Scott said he expects a poor economy to spawn more robberies and larcenies than drug abuse, which he believes is already high.

“Drug and substance abuse is just something people continue to do in record numbers,” he said.

Not all experts believe that a bad economy necessarily means more crime.

Between 1934 and 1938, the nadir of the Great Depression, crime rates fell by about a third, according to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank. Likewise, crime rates in the United States rose every year between 1955 and 1972 while the economy surged.

“The link is not always as clear as one would expect,” said David Muhlhausen, a Heritage senior policy analyst specializing in criminal justice policy. “I would not expect violent crimes to increase or be caused by the recession, but you may see some increases in property crimes.”

The Tipping Point

The economic crisis and downturn in the housing market presents something of a double-edged sword for law enforcement. Declining property values lead to less revenue for law enforcement agencies, meaning they have to decrease their budgets and tighten their belts at the same time crime is expected to increase.

Hunter requested a $150 million budget for 2009, about $3 million less than the Collier Sheriff’s Office’s 2008 budget and about $10 million less than his original request for 2008.

Yet, overall crime in Collier County has decreased, continuing a downward trend for most of the last decade.

In 2007, Collier County’s crime rate was the lowest since at least 1971, and the crime rate for the first six months of 2008 has been even lower. Despite the slumping economy, Hunter said his agency hasn’t seen any unusual patterns or cycles.

The Naples Police Department hasn’t not seen an increase in crime either.

“We check our statistics constantly to see what the trends are, but we haven’t noticed any significant difference that we could associate with the economy,” Naples Chief Tom Weschler said.

Still, there have been some upticks in Collier County.

There were 1,715 petty thefts in Collier County between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 this year, compared to 1,550 during that period in 2007. Through Sept. 30, copper wire thefts increased in Collier County from 48 in 2007 to 73 this year.

Pete Seyez, a manager at Wynn’s Market on U.S. 41 North, said he hasn’t seen an increase in shoplifting from his store.

“It’s not any more than normal,” Seyez said. “We’re always very cautious. Who knows, another six months we may be different.”

In Lee County, the budget has climbed with Scott’s first three years in office. Declining county revenues, however, threaten to restrain future plans.

Earlier this month, Lee County commissioners approved a new $161 million new budget, a 2 percent increase from 2007-2008. Most additional spending is for new hires at an expanded county jail. Raises were postponed across the agency, and a drug awareness program for school children was cut altogether.

The crime rate in Lee County has increased roughly 7 percent during Scott’s tenure, from 37.8 offenses for every 1,000 people to 40.6. Between 2007 and 2008 alone, the rate jumped 6.8 percent.

Much of the rise comes from larcenies, which are up 18 percent since Scott took office. Those statistics remained steady even as general crime numbers trended downward in the first half of 2008.

Scott can be ambivalent about the relationship between crime and the economy. He pins much of the rise on recent growth in the area. Still, he says, some crimes can be linked to a worsening economy.

“I believe so,” he said. “Common sense at least tells me (it’s tied to the economy) when we see shoplifting crimes of opportunity, like women walking into the grocery store with empty pocketbooks.”

For Scott, adequate policing depends on maintaining funds to keep a full force. Deputies can understand going without a pay raise for a single year, he said. New hires might even accept a reduced benefits package. But deep cuts will have to be spread across other agencies before the Sheriff’s Office.

“You’ve got to come to the point where your prioritize,” he said.

With a decreasing tax base, less revenue and increasing desperation, Hunter said he believes the system will eventually “reach its breaking point” and there will be a crime surge in Southwest Florida.

“We just don’t know when,” Hunter said. “This isn’t physics. It’s more art. Who knows when that tipping point is going to occur.”

Common Sense Prevention

Hunter said his agency saw a sickening economy coming two years ago. The Collier Sheriff’s Office started making preparations, utilizing innovative tools like Segways and the Sky Watch Sentinel, a personal observation tower, which allow deputies to see and cover more ground.

To nip in the bud potential crime increases that could accompany increased numbers of abandoned and blighted homes, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office recently initiated its Community Caretaker Initiative, a voluntary partnership of residents, law enforcement officers, business owners and other stake-holders that identifies and cleans up problem homes.

The five worst homes in each of the Sheriff’s Office’s six districts are known as the “Dirty 30.”

“If nobody takes care of those issues, then the quality of life in those neighborhoods will theoretically decline,” Collier Capt. Mark Baker said. “Once they get cleaned up, they go off the radar and another one comes on.”

Experts said that during difficult economic times, the most effective way for residents and visitors to protect themselves from a potential increase in crime is to take common sense precautions, like locking doors at night, closing the garage door, and removing valuables from vehicles.

“Our number one goal is prevention for the citizens and employers,” Weschler said. “It’s the same thing, vigilance and being aware of their surroundings and anything out of the ordinary that might take place. Contact police if you feel there is anything out of the ordinary, and let us look into it.”

People need not panic over a potential increase in crime, said Mike Lynch, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Homicides and violent crimes are a small percentage of the crimes committed in the United States.

“But that’s the crime that people worry about the most,” Lynch said. “It’s common sense. It’s not like it has to take up your day saying ‘What am I going to do to protect myself from crime.’”

Collier County residents interested in learning more about the Community Caretaker Initiative, neighborhood watch programs, or who would like to schedule a security survey at their home can call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at (239) 793-4434.