: Don: The US homicide rate does not show any kind of direct correlation with economics. I wouldn't say direct, but...looking at teh chart- murder rises with increased urbanisation (an economic factor, urbanisation is driven by economics), further, IIRC the worst of the Depression was '33-'35, at which times the murder rates peak- staying low, all the way through teh fifities, and peaking again around '68, which was another year of economic down turn, and again in the seventies, from which we still haven't recovered.
That graph pretty closely charts my understanding of economic history this century....