by Joe Miller,
Director of Development
If you’re reading these words, then chances are you’re already a fan of public libraries.
Libraries are one of the most trusted institutions in the United States. A 2023 study by EveryLibrary Institute found that 96% of parents and guardians say that their children are safe in libraries. And a Pew study found that 78% of Americans overall trust libraries to provide them with accurate information.
These findings are impressive, but I’ll be honest with you—none of them really surprised me much.
But here’s one that did.
It turns out that libraries may reduce crime.
A new(ish) paper published in “The Journal of Cultural Economics” found that several types of crime decreased in proximity to a new public library.
The study looks at data from Kansas City, Missouri. The city had long operated 12 library branches. In 2013, it opened a new branch, which allowed the researchers to pull crime data from the area around the new branch, both before and after its construction.
The results:” a substantial reduction of burglary, vandalism, robbery, fraud and assault” within the vicinity of the new library.
The authors suggest two reasons why libraries reduce crime.
One of the three major factors that determines criminal behavior is something called risk perception. That’s a fancy way of saying that people are more likely to commit a crime if they think they’ll get away with it and less likely to commit crimes if they think they’ll be caught.
New libraries affect risk perception. They increase the number of people in the area. They add outdoor lighting and other security features. Law enforcement patrols visit more frequently. These factors all make criminal activity riskier, which ultimately has a deterrent effect.
The second mechanism the authors propose is that libraries provide safe havens for those most vulnerable to crime, thereby reducing their exposure to criminal activity.
To be sure, libraries are not a magic bullet for solving crime. The study finds that the presence of a library reduces crimes of opportunity, but it finds no effect on crimes that are not situationally dependent (e.g., murder, sexual assault, DUI and weapon-related crimes).
Still, crimes of opportunity are the most common sort of crimes and a substantial reduction in any sort of criminal activity is a good thing.
I’m pretty sure no one had crime reduction in mind when putting library branch-es in each of our largest communities. There are lots of good reasons for situating libraries near people—perhaps the biggest of which is that people are more likely to use libraries when they are nearby.
But it’s a nice—if surprising—bonus!
