It is actually more straightforward than that: Why does there appear to be so much confusion within the contemporary study of whether crime and economics are related?
The fact that these studies are based on 2 contradictory theoretical assumptions: (1) the relation between economic conditions and crime is an inverse one (2) the relation between economic conditions and crime is a positive one. As economic conditions improve crime increases because criminality is an extension of normal economic activity. For example, people with more disposable income will be able to spend that money on illegal activities like drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc. As underground organizations emerge to meet these needs they create even more crime (i.e. turf wars among drug dealing organizations). Periods of depression should see a decrease in crime. Plascowe felt he could justify this model as a long-term historical explanation because while the quality of life has risen dramatically for all in western societies, so has the crime rate. Durkheim also supported this view.
It is not obvious that we can discover a way to correlate crime and poverty because our economic system tends to facilitate, even thrive on criminal activity. One might even suggest that the relationship is being viewed backwardly: poverty is the symptom of despicable activity, some of which is literally criminal and other of which is legal but we are not sure why (e.g., Payday Loan operations).
“Zero correlation” is clearly not correct, it depends on how one measures. Crime is a pretty vast, complicated and subjective landscape which involves a whole lot of vectors. Economics is most certainly one of them, one way or the other. “Liberals” may infer that poverty is a contributing factor (or perhaps an indicator), but when assholes like you claim that liberals say poverty causes crime, that is just dishonest (even, dare I say it, criminal).
Why are the poor more likely to be criminals? Do you think if they made a middle class income(say 50,000) they would still engage in crime?
Poverty is a factor. Maybe not the whole picture but I fail to see how it doesn’t have an effect.
Problem is, liberals do say poverty is the root cause of crime. If the Dopers are an exception, I’ll gladly be wrong about that, but it is the liberal mainstream view and has been for a long time.
I think it’s not so much that poor people are likely to be criminals so much as criminals are likely to end up poor, since being criminal tends to shut you out of mainstream life. I can’t prove that, of course, it’s just a theory to explain the facts. To me, the fact that a lot of formerly poor celebrities often continue to be criminals even after making lots of money suggests that money wasn’t the cause of their issues, since having money didn’t solve anything for them. But I don’t think anyone’s done studies on how many formerly poor celebrities relapse into a life of crime.
If lead is the primary cause of criminal behavior, then taking a lead-addled person and giving him money doesn’t make him any less dangerous to the people around him.
There is a long standing, decades old correlation between poverty and crime established through peer reviewed literature, so entrenched that there are multiple competing theories to explain the correlation. One might somehow argue that poverty is not itself causative of crime, but the correlation has been established. It’s not even counterintuitive - the general perception that more crime occurs in impoverished neighborhoods is correct. One example:
Okay, then if poverty increases, crime should increase. This was predicted by all those peer-reviewed studies. It didn’t happen.
really, this is simple, even for an Ivy Leaguer. If you observe something(poor people are more likely to be criminal), and come up with a hypothesis(being poor makes them criminal), then empirically you should be able to demonstrate a higher crime rate when poverty increases.
Since the “experiment” disproved the hypothesis, the hypothesis should be discarded. And would have been, if sociology was a hard science. But the soft sciences seem especially prone to advocacy and faddishness, so old theories die hard.
I guess the biggest problem is that liberal ivory tower types would have to admit that conservative common sense won out over their complex peer-reviewed studies.
Criminals lack moral discipline and intelligence, and THAT’s the cause of their behavior. And it turns out that exposure to too much lead as a child makes you lack impulse control and intelligence. So there ya go.
Showing a correlation between crime and poverty isn’t even sociology, it’s just statistics at that point. The assertion that there is no correlation between poverty and crime can be shown to be statistically wrong without invoking theory at all.
And so the drop in crime as poverty has increased is explained by…
I’ve already conceded that criminals are likely to live in poverty. You’re just repeating something we all agree on, while trying to draw an incorrect conclusion.
If you’re conceding that then you’re conceding this:
and this:
are not correct. I’m not jumping on you because I have a beef with you politically, but crime statistics a professional interest for me. I avoided this for several days because I like you and don’t want to pile on you, but shit, man. That shit’s just flat out wrong.
I’m trying to be clear, but I think you’re misunderstanding.
I said, “There is zero correlation between poverty RATES and crime”. That is factually correct.
I also said, as you quoted, “Poverty causes crime… is just demonstrably and provably wrong.”
What you’re arguing is that there is a correlation between the STATE of poverty and crime, whereas I was talking about rates. We agree that there is this correlation. However, causation is disproven by the fact that the correlation collapses when the poverty rate increases while the crime rate decreases.
No, causation isn’t disproven at all. This is the same problem another poster complained of earlier, assuming that identifying one cause of crime disproves all possible others. That’s not the case. Even if you were correct that poverty has risen while crime has fallen over the last few decades, it still is a fact that poverty and crime are correlated; that simply shows that the effect of another possible causative factor has decreased, or that a preventative factor has worked. To use the lead example, if increased lead exposure were a major causative factor in criminality, decreasing that exposure across the board would lead to an overall decrease in criminality in general, even if poverty was an independent cause and increased poverty merely caused the decrease of eliminating lead to be less than it would be otherwise. Another is an independent preventative measure like longer sentencing, which is another provable trend. If longer sentences decrease crime even as poverty rises that doesn’t mean that poverty wasn’t causative of crime, it just means that longer sentences work.
You can hypothesize that other factors continued to reduce crime despite the increase in poverty, but you have not actually demonstrated a correlation between poverty rates and crime rates since those things have been measured.
Poverty has bounced up and down over the decades, peaking in 1983, 1993, and 2010. Crime rates have not shown such a variable trend. Crime simply went up and up and up until 1991, and since have gone down and down and down.
It’s two completely uncorrelated data sets.
The reason the lead theory is so attractive is because it almost perfectly correlates with the rise and fall of crime.
Or people like you who don’t seek to fight ignorance so much as try to discredit those who dare to have an opinion you don’t approve of.
The difference between you and me is that when I see someone say something spectacularly wrong, it’s enough to just correct the bad argument. You seek to destroy the credibility of the person making the argument. But I shouldn’t pick on you, you represent the majority of discussion board denizens. While the discussion tends to be more intellectual than your average internet fare, the maturity level is no better, and the best moderators in the world can only keep it under control so well.
The reality is that I have more of a beef with the lies from groups like the tea party that are certifiably so.
That you want to follow that ignorance is bad enough, that you want to be their pamphleteer is worse.
A lie in reality as seen in your previous efforts in the past election. It was never enough to say it once, it was needed for you to make it a relentless day in and day out defense of ridiculous sources. If correcting a bad argument was the point for you, you should had stopped the attempt at discrediting the good sources early.
And yet the warning from the moderators was for you, in reality you are also lying to yourself, the problem is you. And there cannot be a better pit thread when the one that is directed to just brings more examples that shows that the OP was indeed right.
Doesn’t matter how many times it is. The purpose of this board is to fight ignorance, not the ignorant. If you prefer the latter, may I suggest Paul Krugman’s site? He’s probably the best example of a prominent genius who isn’t satisfied with just refuting bad arguments, he also needs to call everyone he disagrees with idiots.
BTW, what’s the standard here? Am I as much of an idiot as Barack Obama?
Barack Obama is wrong more than half the time he opens his mouth, and he has people to help him. If we’re really generous and count half-true statements as close enough, he’s wrong more than a quarter of the time.