In an article produced by Richard Burk and Kenneth Lenihan from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, they do a great job in explaining crime and poverty. Yes, crime and poverty is something that is linked and it has been noticed that crime occurs at a much higher rate in poverty stricken areas. This is pointed out at the very early on. However, there are certain issues that arise while trying to study such a topic such as collinearity the ecological fallacy, and defining different terms and boundaries. This looked at participants of the TARP program which stands for Transitional Aid Research Project. The project took felons and put them into four different groups after they were released from prison and this study analyzes these people for a 12-month period after they were released. They took a look at participants in each of four different groups. They analyzed the effects of different amounts of support over different period of time to try and figure out what worked best for reducing the rate of recidivism. With several variable they found that the data was insufficient to make any conclusions and that a longer analyzation time of possibly 24 months would have helped. The study focused predominately on unemployment benefits and what was found is that extending unemployment insurance benefits to released prisoners will not increase recidivism overall. This makes it possible to argue for policies of this nature but just like most studies there is no causal proof. This study took a more in depth look at the crime and poverty debate and focused more on issues of how to solve the problem.

Richard A. Berk, Kenneth J. Lenihan and Peter H. Rossi. “Crime and Poverty: Some                           Experimental Evidence From Ex-Offenders.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 45,                  No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 766-786 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094894