# Crime rate DOWN DOWN DOWN!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 25, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185 "2011-05-25T18:20:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/41 "2011-05-26T17:57:49Z")
_Freakonomics_ also talked about the “Broken Window” theory, but discounted it as a basis for the drop in crime based on a couple of observations: the drop began before the “broken window” policies did, and crime rates dropped by equivalent amounts in cities not implementing them. They did make New York a much nicer place though. They also covered the crack issue, and said it was a major contributor to falling crime rates, if not _the_ major one. It’s not that crack has gone away, but that the dealers fighting for territory have switched tactics from killing their rivals, to merely maiming them. The maimings probably do go under-reported. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/42 "2011-05-26T18:22:15Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > _Freakonomics_ also talked about the “Broken Window” theory, but discounted it as a basis for the drop in crime based on a couple of observations: the drop began before the “broken window” policies did, and crime rates dropped by equivalent amounts in cities not implementing them. They did make New York a much nicer place though. > > They also covered the crack issue, and said it was a major contributor to falling crime rates, if not _the_ major one. It’s not that crack has gone away, but that the dealers fighting for territory have switched tactics from killing their rivals, to merely maiming them. The maimings probably do go under-reported. The Freakonomics documentary actually also mentioned that safe, legal abortion probably played a role in the falling crime rate as well. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/43 "2011-05-26T20:48:46Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Well known? Really? This is the first that I’ve heard of it. > > Do you have a cite? The book _Freakonomics_ covers the hypothesis pretty well, and mentions some studies that examine it in more detail. I don’t have my copy here with me though. Not that I’m saying cleaning up subway cars is pointless. I’m not saying it has zero effect, either. Just that pointing to shiny subway cars as a major contributing factor in a 75% decrease in homicides over 20 years is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/44 "2011-05-26T20:58:28Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Perhaps I should have added this to the end of my post —\> 😃 > > In reality, I came up with the comment because of a conversation I had with some local cops last year. We had a vacant house on the street for a while (neighbor walked away from their mortgage). All of us neighbors watched the house. One day I saw two teenagers being teenagers around the vacant house. (Several of us regularly checked out the house front and back and would know if something was amiss.) I called the police. Teenagers left neighborhood. I called the police to report they left. Police arrived about 30 minutes later. They only arrived because it was a slow day for them, otherwise they would not have showed up. Only violent crime gets their attention immediately. Everything else waits, with only actual crimes going on the books. Since the teenagers didn’t break into the house or trash it, it normally would not even get recorded by dispatch. Meaning nothing ever happened and my eyewitness account that something happened that never happened would not have been recorded, either. > > A critical problem of not recording everything means the police are not compiling statistics of potential crimes as well as petty crimes. They can’t run the numbers and look for patterns that might lead to the prevention of actual crimes. > > Nope, not being cynical. Just offering a view based upon an actual incident, and the subsequent conversation with the police who showed up (late) only because it was a slow crime day for them. I cannot extrapolate from one story in one municipality from two cops that the whole world works that way. I’m not saying it does or doesn’t but that the one story means naught. And yes, if it was a slow crime day, that means something - plus the incident you mention is NOT a crime. I hate disruptive teenagers as much as anybody but teenagers simply hanging around an abandoned lot is now something the cops need to come out for? Seriously? Why is it even important? They didn’t break in or trash it so you called the cops merely to report their existence? Those cops had better not come out if they have more important things to do, like an actual crime. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/45 "2011-05-26T21:48:44Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > The Freakonomics documentary actually also mentioned that safe, legal abortion probably played a role in the falling crime rate as well. Yes, and I agree that was probably a factor. It was mentioned in post 19 though, so I didn’t bring it up again. Also, it’s the one _Freakonomics_ conjecture that everyone seems to know about already. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/46 "2011-05-26T22:21:41Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > With budget squeezes at every level, law enforcement has also been cut. With fewer cops on the street, callouts have to be prioritized. If your call isn’t a priority, tough. Fewer calls attended to means fewer cases to address. Few cases on the books means the stats show fewer crimes being recorded. If it’s not recorded, it never happened. > > Hence a lower crime rate. > > > [@Anaamika](#): > > > > You are like, the King of Cynicism. How do you even get out the door every day with that much cynicism in your veins? I am half appalled and half impressed. But he’s not wrong. When police activity is aggressive and the wait to have a complaint processed and addressed, crime reporting goes up even with a constant or reduced level of crime. When police presence is reduced and complaints take weeks to process or are dismissed below a certain threshold, crime stats go down even as criminal activity is increasing. It should also be noted that what is considered crime and how crimes are classified changes dramatically through years, making normalization of crime stats across several decades and different regions problematic. As an example, many domestic incidents resulting in assault or non-traumatic battery were considered minor misdemeanors prior to the 1980s, whereas now they’re considered on par with aggravated assault with a progressive scale of severity. Restraining orders used to be a very difficult and time-consuming order to receive, and so the number of injunctions issued for potentially violent behavior was small. Now, most major municipalities offer temporary restraining orders that can be levied for a limited period _ex parte_ (without formal representation by the object party) and so if you count TROs as part and parcel of all injunctions, there would be a massive increase. One particular influence of note is the “War On Drugs”. Beginning with the _Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970_, the federal government made a systematic effort to criminalize the manufacture, distribution, sale, and use of many classes of controlled substances. This created both a large amount of perceived crime (by distributors and users), and real crime (prohibition-related violence and monetary crime) that did not previously exist in any measure, leading to the perception that the 'Eighties had a massive increase in crime over previous decades. Exacerbating this was asset forfeiture, which provided incentive to municipalities and states to pursue criminal claims in cases with even weak bases so that they could obtain property for use or sale (see below). So while the crime stats may not be deliberately “cooked”, they’ve certainly been unevenly warmed by changes through the years, and making an apples-to-apples comparison is problematic. > [@palacheck](#): > > And are budgets really being cut across the nation? Seems like a raid on a stash house in the 1970s involved a sledge hammer and a few guys with their service revolvers. Now apparently there’s a decked out SWAT team available at a moment’s notice(the local police don’t look like they’re in need of any more nifty gadgets and equipment either). But I guess if there’s a shortage of police then all of that nice stuff isn’t of much use. Although asset forfeiture has gone to something of a decline compared to the mid-'Nineties when it reached an all-time high (owing partly to negative public perception and partly to legislative and judicial restrictions) it is still a major revenue stream for most major state and local law enforcement agencies, and so such operations are self-supporting when they can maintain a rhythm of arrests and seizures. Nonetheless, due to reductions in tax base owing as much to home foreclosures and loss of property tax revenue as to reductions in consumer spending, most cities are significantly cutting back on all public services including fire and law enforcement support, particularly costly overtime pay. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/47 "2011-05-27T04:39:27Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > _Freakonomics_ also talked about the “Broken Window” theory, but discounted it as a basis for the drop in crime based on a couple of observations: the drop began before the “broken window” policies did, and crime rates dropped by equivalent amounts in cities not implementing them. They did make New York a much nicer place though. > > They also covered the crack issue, and said it was a major contributor to falling crime rates, if not _the_ major one. It’s not that crack has gone away, but that the dealers fighting for territory have switched tactics from killing their rivals, to merely maiming them. The maimings probably do go under-reported. Another factor for the drop in murder rate in NYC at least, is that (as I hear it) the NYC ambulance service reorganised itself around then, and were able to get out to shootings a lot quicker than before (IIRC 1 hour instead of 2). Consequently a lot of shootings that would have previously been murders ended up as injuries that were recovered from. Not that that stopped the NYPD from taking credit for the reduction in the murder rate, and assigning it to their zero-tolerance policy, instead of entirely unrelated co-incidental factors. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185/48 "2011-05-27T04:51:16Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Demographics. Most crimes are committed by young men. All those aging, arthritic baby boomers (that comprise a big hunk of the population) aren’t committing too many armed robberies these days. Hence, lower crime rate. I’m pretty sure there are still plenty of young men around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crime-rate-down-down-down/583185.md?page=2)