I’m pretty sure that the crimerates rising with bad economic times is just a folktale. You’d be hard pressed to pick out the Recessions in this graph. And of course our current record breaking recession has seen no increase in crime.
I’m not so sure about** Duckster**'s theory. I grew up in a very insular Italian-American community and crimes seemed to be much, much more under reported. Things like vandalism, burglary, and certain kinds of assault would rarely be reported–depending on the seriousness of the crime of course. Maybe that was unusual, I don’t know.
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.
My perception may just be due to the staggering amount of COPS-type shows around these days.
I watched a show about Bernard Goetz the other night, and the impression it gave was that crime in New York in the early 80’s was dreadful. From what else has been posted here and what I’ve looked up, crime in that area anyway has decreased.
I know it is O/T but why did that happen?
It happened because of the abatement of the crack epidemic. Nobody’s entirely sure how or why that happened, though.
Crime pretty much everywhere in the US has decreased (see the graph linked in my last post). Theories as to why are pretty thick on the ground, but it wasn’t unique to New York.
I’d explain it, but Wiki does a much better job of it.
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.
Something has to be done about this. Lower crime will end up in job cuts for policemen, prison guards, and all the people who make handcuffs, fingerprint kits, and all the crime related accessories. On top of the that, criminals tend to spend their ill gotten gains within the community. People who now have more non-stolen money will likely spend it on Chinese products, depriving our own communties of needed economic activity. We need a government program to help restore our crime levels.
Quoting me in another thread:
Also, birthrates were pretty level in the first half of the century, so if demographics were the primary driver of crime, you’d expect the 60’s to have a similar rate of crime to previous decades, instead of the rapid climb it in fact showed.
Lower crime rates also tend to have a strangulation effect on culture and the arts. People are way more creative and enjoy more kinds of music, theater, cubs, street life etc., if they see squalor and sense threatening people around. Otherwise they just drive their nice cars, park, go to some trendy bistro with piped-in music, eat, drink wine, and are home in front of the idiot box by 9:30.
I almost started a thread on this topic myself. Here’s a TIME article on the subject:
How do you explain the fact that the murder rates have been dropping? Surely you don’t think that murder is underreported?
From the article I posted above:
“Last year’s murder rate may be the lowest since the mid-1960s, according to preliminary statistics released by the Department of Justice.”
Doing some digging, it appears the murder rate was 9.8 per 100,000 people at its peak in the 90s and has dropped to 5.0 per 100,000. Cite:
FBI Report
Quote from the FBI report:
“There were 5.0 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009, an 8.1 percent decrease from the 2008 rate. Compared with the 2005 rate, there was a 12.1 percent decrease in the murder rate; compared with the 2000 rate, a 10.4 percent decrease was recorded.”
That’s huge.
Heh. I wonder why it was slow for them. Could there be a reason?
That was his explanation, but crime rates also fell in cities not putting these policies into place. I’ll give him that this helped the quality of life in NY (making the life of graffiti short discourages more) but I’m not sure that there is evidence this really affected the crime rate in any significant way.
Recession Update: People Running out of Shit Worth Stealing
I blame it on high gas prices. It is a damned shame when criminals can’t even afford to fill up their van anymore to commit robberies or kidnappings. I heard the number of drive by shootings in LA plummeted when gas topped over $4 a gallon. People have even put off joining gangs in the first place because of the gas money commitment leaving them with no plans and no future. So sad.
There are more forces than graffiti cleanup at work, I’m sure. The aging demographic and reduced drug use surely play a part as well. The hypothesis I read said that it was a combination of these factors happening all at the same time. I don’t think anyone really knows, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
My own (very weak) hypothesis is that as NYC goes, so goes the rest of the country.
American Youths Show Increasing Lack of Motivation and Initiative: Video Games to Blame?
The Broken Windows theory is well-known to be bullshit.
Well known? Really? This is the first that I’ve heard of it.
Do you have a cite?
While overall crime rates have indeed fallen, and continue to fall, the part about being murdered depends upon where you are.
According to an FBI report issued this Monday 5-23-11, there was a huge jump in murders in the Northeast part of the country. The New York Times is being very disinformative with the article in the OP. Try this report from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/23/us-usa-crime-idUSTRE74M50O20110523