The connection between joblessness and violence comes to life in a timely August research paper Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009, which found “a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability.” Authors Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth examined the relationship between spending cuts and a measure of instability they termed CHAOS — “the sum of demonstrations, riots, strikes, assassinations, and attempted revolutions in a single year in each country.”

Their conclusion: Austerity breeds anarchy. More cuts, more crime.This clickable graph helps to tell the story…

And yet, somewhat miraculously, crime has fallen in the U.S. through the Great Recession.