# Does socioeconomic status/poverty account for violent crime rates? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488 "2014-12-17T13:05:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/21 "2014-12-20T03:57:18Z")
Here are two states: Maryland: 10.1% below the poverty line, Iowa: 12.8% below the poverty line. The OP’s authority is going to say Maryland should have a slightly lower murder rate than Iowa. Yet the actual murder rates are 6.4/100,000 for Maryland but only 1.4/100,000 for Iowa. **Maryland over 4 times as many murders per 100,000 population than Iowa** The difference is that Iowa: 85% White, 3% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Other Maryland: 50% White, 29% Black, 10% Hispanic, 12% Other ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/22 "2014-12-20T04:50:49Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > While it’s too complicated to sum up quite that simply, I think the fundamental idea is correct. I would phrase it this way “Crime rates correlate more strongly with socioeconomic status than with race.” This is especially true if you specify violent crime (as opposed to, say, drug crimes or white-collar crime). This is precisely it. In empirical analyses, when you account for economic factors, race does not predict criminal behavior. Race still predicts arrest and prosecution, though, due to disporpotionate minority arrest. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/23 "2014-12-20T04:51:58Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Here are two states: > Maryland: 10.1% below the poverty line, > Iowa: 12.8% below the poverty line. > > The OP’s authority is going to say Maryland should have a slightly lower murder rate than Iowa. Yet the actual murder rates are 6.4/100,000 for Maryland but only 1.4/100,000 for Iowa. > > **Maryland over 4 times as many murders per 100,000 population than Iowa** > > The difference is that > Iowa: 85% White, 3% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Other > Maryland: 50% White, 29% Black, 10% Hispanic, 12% Other Is that the difference between Iowa and Maryland? Really? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/24 "2014-12-20T11:27:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then the recent increase in inequality should have caused a spike in crime. Just because inequality is a factor, doesn’t mean there aren’t other factors at work. The mother jones article I linked earlier talked about childhood exposure to lead poisoning being responsible for adults growing up and becoming criminals. The U.S. did things like remove lead from paint and gasoline. Childhood exposure to lead was substantially reduced. About 20 years later (in the 1990s) we saw a huge drop in crime. That’s when the new generation grew up with less lead exposure. But the U.S. still has higher violent crime rates than other, more equal countries. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/25 "2014-12-20T12:36:47Z")
That’s because income inequality correlates pretty well with immigration levels from non-Western countries. Import poor people, get more inequality and poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/26 "2014-12-20T15:46:13Z")
> **[ViolenceAndUSRegionalCulture.pdf](https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/92174/ViolenceAndUSRegionalCulture.pdf?sequence=1)** > > 2.23 MB [http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-southern-curse-why-america-s-murder-rate-is-so-high.html](http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-southern-curse-why-america-s-murder-rate-is-so-high.html) ’ > [@](#): > > ‘The whole American scandalously high homicide rates are Southern in origin,’’ says Roger Lane, a professor of history at Haverford College and author of ‘‘Murder in America: A History’’ (Ohio State University Press, 1997). Until the 1960’s, Professor Lane said, America’s big cities actually had murder rates lower than the national average, since the national rate had been skewed upward by Southern homicides. > > The question of why murder is so prevalent in the South has fascinated observers as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville, who in the early 1830’s recorded a remark by a young lawyer he encountered in Alabama. ‘‘There is no one here but carries arms under his clothes,’’ the lawyer said. ‘‘At the slightest quarrel, knife or pistol comes to hand. These things happen continually; it is a semi-barbarous state of society.’’ > > A study of 19th century judicial records completed in 1980 by Michael Hindus, a lawyer, found that from 1800 to 1860 the murder rate in South Carolina, an overwhelmingly rural, agrarian area, was four times higher than that of Massachusetts, then the most urban, industrial state. More than a century later, the difference persists in almost the same magnitude. In 1996, the murder rate in South Carolina was 9 per 100,000 people, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation; in Massachusetts it was 2.6 per 100,000 people. > > High Southern homicide rates challenge a central theory of criminology, which predicts more murder in densely populated urban areas where crowding and poverty break down traditional social ties and values. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/27 "2014-12-20T20:14:55Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > The question of why murder is so prevalent in the South has fascinated observers as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville, who in the early 1830’s recorded a remark by a young lawyer he encountered in Alabama. ‘‘There is no one here but carries arms under his clothes,’’ the lawyer said. ‘‘At the slightest quarrel, knife or pistol comes to hand. These things happen continually; it is a semi-barbarous state of society.’’ One explanation that makes sense: The “[culture of honor](http://personal.tcu.edu/swoodworth/cultureofhonor.html)” theory. > [@](#): > > Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South. By Richard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen. Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1996. 119 pp. > > In Culture of Honor, professors of Psychology, Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen set forth to provide an explanation for the higher levels of violence found in the South. To account for this pattern of violence, the authors argue that the South, “had and to a substantial degree, still has, a type of culture of honor” (xiv). The “culture of honor” places utmost importance on the ability to respond to social insults and economic challenges. According to Nisbett and Cohen, in a “culture of honor,” a reputation for strength and toughness held great economic value (xv). Nisbett and Cohen identify three other major explanations for increased Southern violence, including higher temperatures, the tradition of slavery, and greater poverty. Yet, the authors maintain the importance of honor as independent of, and perhaps greater than, any of the other explanations (3). > > Using anthropological precedent, Nisbett and Cohen demonstrate that the rural South held commonalities with other honor-based cultures, such as the Navajo and Celts. According to Nisbett and Cohen, honor-based cultures develop in response to economic precariousness and minimal state protection against theft of property (4). Herding societies often demonstrate these characteristics in that a loss of a herd represented a loss of entire wealth (5). The Scotch-Irish, descendants of Celtic herdsman, developed rural herding communities along the Appalachians and in the South. In the low-population frontier region, the state held little power to command compliance with the law, and thus, citizens created their own system of order based upon retaliation and honor (xv). The geography and low-population densities of these Southern areas further “culture of honor” tendencies in the South. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/28 "2014-12-20T22:46:52Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Here are two states: > Maryland: 10.1% below the poverty line, > Iowa: 12.8% below the poverty line. > > The OP’s authority is going to say Maryland should have a slightly lower murder rate than Iowa. Yet the actual murder rates are 6.4/100,000 for Maryland but only 1.4/100,000 for Iowa. > > **Maryland over 4 times as many murders per 100,000 population than Iowa** > > The difference is that > Iowa: 85% White, 3% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Other > Maryland: 50% White, 29% Black, 10% Hispanic, 12% Other 87% of the population of Maryland lives in urban areas, whereas only 64% of the population of Iowa lives in urban areas. (2010 numbers, which I found [here](http://www.icip.iastate.edu/tables/population/urban-pct-states), based on the 10-year US. census). If you want to argue that one race is inherently more violent than another – a claim which, on the face of it, seems racist – you really ought, in my opinion, to at least consider the _incredibly obvious_ alternative explanations for your evidence. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/29 "2014-12-21T03:33:29Z")
Race is a social and cultural construct. So is crime. It is entirely reasonable to link the two, not based on physical or mental characteristics, but on the social and cultural aspects of race. We have no trouble linking the South with higher rates of societal dysfunction. Is that offensive to the Southern people? Does it matter? ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/30 "2014-12-21T06:00:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Race is a social and cultural construct. So is crime. It is entirely reasonable to link the two, **not based on physical or mental characteristics, but on the social and cultural aspects of race.** (bolding mine) The bolded part is key. If for example,you were to say “our society treats people who we consider ‘black’ a certain way, and treating people in this way has an effect on how likely they are to commit violent crimes” I don’t think anyone could reasonably characterize that as a racist statement. They might not believe it’s _true_, but that’s a different question. If on the other hand you were to say “black people are more predisposed to commit violent crimes than white people”, without clarifying that you mean “because of our societal treatment of race”, then I think it would be overly charitable to assume that’s what you meant. Many people throughout American history have made this statement with the clear intent to claim that African Americans were inferior by virtue of their biology. So anyone who had any awareness of American history and who cared about not looking like a racist would surely want to clarify that they were making a more subtle point about race as a societal construct and not just trotting out the same old racist canard. Probably they would just be explicit about the point they were _actually_ making right from the start. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/31 "2014-12-21T06:26:00Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > If on the other hand you were to say “black people are more predisposed to commit violent crimes than white people”, without clarifying that you mean “because of our societal treatment of race”, then I think it would be overly charitable to assume that’s what you meant. That has certainly been a big factor. There are cultural factors as well though. Many of which, the President himself has mentioned: > [@](#): > > Go into any inner-city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. > > They know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/32 "2014-12-21T06:32:54Z")
Anyway, my point wasn’t to make judgements about race and crime. that’s above all our pay grades. My point was that since race is cultural, not biological, and since we can make judgements about how various cultures handle various issues, then it’s just as reasonable to make the same judgements about race. Otherwise, what Barack Obama said about “bitterly clinging to guns and religion” was an extremely offensive statement that should have made him a social pariah. It didn’t because it’s okay in the PC world to make sweeping generalizations about hicks. Science can’t work that way. If we can observe that people living in flyover country have different values than us, then we can also observe that people living in the inner cities will have different values and different social outcomes arise from those different values. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/33 "2014-12-21T14:17:51Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Otherwise, what Barack Obama said about “bitterly clinging to guns and religion” was an extremely offensive statement that should have made him a social pariah. It didn’t because it’s okay in the PC world to make sweeping generalizations about hicks. When President Obama launches an [intiative](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/education/obamas-my-brothers-keeper-education-program-expands.html?_r=0) to help hicks get over their guns and religion, please let me know. Because that will mean that the pathology of whites will be finally getting the special attention it needs and that maybe he will have less energy to scold [black people](http://www.newsmax.com/US/Racism-speech-Congressional-Black-Caucus-dinner/2014/09/29/id/597415/) all the time. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/34 "2014-12-22T15:38:44Z")
Well, crime rates are now at a 50-year low while the poverty rate has hardly changed in the past few decades. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/35 "2014-12-22T15:51:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, crime rates are now at a 50-year low while the poverty rate has hardly changed in the past few decades. But absolute poverty has changed a whole lot. Fifty years ago, poor kids in rural areas would walk to school barefoot. When was the last time you saw a kid walking barefoot in public? There is also more nutritional assistance available now than fifty years ago. [Malnutrition in early childhood](http://www.crimetimes.org/ct111.pdf) has been linked to criminality in adulthood. It has also been linked to [epigenetic changes](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130923092030.htm). It’s possible that lower crime rates in impoverished adults today can be attributed to LBJ and Nixon’s War on Poverty programs of the 1960s. Help people eat better, and their children and grandchildren won’t be so violent and crazed, regardless of the current level of income inequality . ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/36 "2014-12-23T17:29:32Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > (bolding mine) > > The bolded part is key. If for example,you were to say “our society treats people who we consider ‘black’ a certain way, and treating people in this way has an effect on how likely they are to commit violent crimes” I don’t think anyone could reasonably characterize that as a racist statement. They might not believe it’s _true_, but that’s a different question. > > If on the other hand you were to say “black people are more predisposed to commit violent crimes than white people”, without clarifying that you mean “because of our societal treatment of race”, then I think it would be overly charitable to assume that’s what you meant. Many people throughout American history have made this statement with the clear intent to claim that African Americans were inferior by virtue of their biology. So anyone who had any awareness of American history and who cared about not looking like a racist would surely want to clarify that they were making a more subtle point about race as a societal construct and not just trotting out the same old racist canard. Probably they would just be explicit about the point they were _actually_ making right from the start. Men are biologically more predisposed to commit violent crime than women. I don’t think any serious person considers that claim ‘sexist’. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/37 "2014-12-23T21:37:12Z")
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the crime rate among blacks is higher. The odds are stacked worse against them, so it’s easy to see how conforming would seem more futile. It’s what I’d call a rational response. (Not that crime is rational; it’s just an understandable reaction that has nothing to do with any innate qualities of black people or their culture.) So, whether it’s true or not isn’t particularly significant, to me. I mean, what would it imply, if true? If false? Either way, my position is the same: you judge individuals by their behavior, not by generalizations regarding some group to which they happen to belong. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/38 "2014-12-23T22:43:51Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Men are biologically more predisposed to commit violent crime than women. I’ll risk being thought unserious to ask why you state this as fact. \*Biologically \*predisposed to violent crime? I’m not at all certain that’s the case. . ---
**Author:** ![IMfez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f07891/32.png) [@IMfez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IMfez)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/39 "2014-12-23T23:20:43Z")
I think it’s been scientifically demonstrated that males, not just human, but most other species, are more aggressive at the population level. From there it’s not a significant leap to link aggression to higher rates of criminality. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488/40 "2014-12-24T00:19:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Anyway, my point wasn’t to make judgements about race and crime. that’s above all our pay grades. No, it isn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-socioeconomic-status-poverty-account-for-violent-crime-rates/707488.md?page=3)