Unemployed Man, Chad David Ryan, Turned To Robbery, Police Say

In an investigation of a grocery store theft, police in Newberry Township, Pa., tracked down the home of 39-year-old Chad David Ryan. When they arrived, Ryan was unpacking several hundred dollars worth of stolen food, reports the York Daily Record. He then confessed to a string of armed robberies, showed police the evidence, and said that he did it all to support himself. Ryan had been unemployed, he explained, since 2009.

As unemployment climbed in the aftermath of the financial crisis, analysts were surprised by a peculiar trend: Violent crime was going down. As of 2011, violent crime, which includes robbery (theft with the threat of violence), had declined for the fifth consecutive year, according to FBI data. Yet common sense has it that when millions are out of work, the number of income-generating crimes would rise. For many criminologists, it was a stumper.