[copious.abundance]

Surely a sign of massive societal collapse due to peak oil!

LINK

Violent crime dropped 6% in 2010, marking the fourth straight year-to-year decline, while property crime was down for the eighth straight year, falling 2.7%, the FBI reported Monday.

Nationwide, there were an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes reported to authorities in 2010 and an estimated 9 million property crimes.

An aging population, better policing and continued high rates of imprisonment for criminals are helping to drive down crime rates, criminologists say.

Robbery fell 10%, rape dropped 5%, and murder, non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault fell more than 4%.

Each category of property crime offenses decreased in 2010. The largest decline, 7.4%, was for motor vehicle thefts. Burglaries decreased 2% and larceny-thefts declined 2.4%.

[PrestonSturges]

OK, don't go undercutting the "scary black people" narrative.

[Sixstrings]

Surely a sign of massive societal collapse due to peak oil!

I'm glad you posted this because of the flash mob issue.. I'd wondered what the overall statistics were. Last I'd heard crime was flat since '08. So your link shows it falling.

This is interesting considering the economy. One would think crime would go up. Ultimately.. I think crime has fallen and gone flat over the last 10 - 15 years precisely because so many people are in prison. From a civil liberties perspective it's not cool how we imprison more people than any other nation in the world. Libertarians would also repeal the drug laws and I think that's what at least 60% of people in prison and on probation?

So what's interesting is that apparently we do have safer society because of all the people in prison and on probation. So you have to weigh things.. perhaps all the states with 3 strikes laws made all this difference.. and maybe illicit drugs being illegal is worth it.. maybe having so many people locked up is worth it.. society is safer, we can't deny the data.

[Plantagenet]

Last I'd heard crime was flat since '08. So your link shows it falling.

This is interesting considering the economy. One would think crime would go up.

Read the interesting book "Freakonomics". The author makes a very strong case that crime rates are actually a function of demographics rather than poverty or economics. NO matter what kind of economy the authors studied, an unusually high number of young males in the population usually means an unusually high crime rate.

Illegal immigration to the USA dropped dramatically when the US economy went off a cliff, and since most illegal immigrants are young males, and the population mix of US citizens is progressively getting older, a concomitant drop in the crime rate has occurred right on schedule.

[copious.abundance]

The authors of Freakonomics said that abortion rates were the cause of the decline in the crime rate starting in the early 90's, not "demographcis" per se. Abortion became legal in all states after Roe v Wade in the early 70's, so they concluded that some ~20 years later, when the erstwhile criminals would have started reaching their crininal-prone age, crime rates would go down ... because with abortion now legal everywhere, mothers who were previously forced to bear children they didn't really want could now abort them, and criminally-prone people tend to be disproportionally among those whose parents didn't really want them. In other words, fewer unwanted kids = fewer criminals starting about 20 years later.

The theory sounded nice, but it's run into problems the past several years. Abortion rates started declining more than 20 years ago now, and those authors stated several years ago that crime rates should start gong up. But they never did, they've continued going down. So obviously there's something else going on.

Also, illegal immigration soared in the 90's and 00's (until a few years ago) - and yet crime rates continued going down.

[copious.abundance]

Here's the FBI's table on violent crime stats:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... 0tbl01.xls

The murder rate last year was 4.8 per 100K people - less than half the rate of 1991.

[Sixstrings]

The murder rate last year was 4.8 per 100K people - less than half the rate of 1991.

1991 is about when all the three strikes stuff started. So what's behind this do you think.. is it demographics as Plant says, or are we safe because we imprison more people than any other nation? Maybe the newer gun laws?

Who gets the credit here, law and order conservatives or gun-restricting liberals.

[copious.abundance]

Here's the decline in the abortion rate I was talking about:


LINK

If the abortion-crime theory were the main reason for the decline in crime rates, we should be seeing increased crime by now, since the rate peaked around 1980. There "should" be more unwanted offspring in their late teens and early 20's by now, and so there "should" be more crime. But there isn't. So obviously it's not the whole answer, even if it's partly true.

I'm not sure there's any single reason for it. A decrease in the crack cocaine trade is one oft-cited reason, coupled with increased incarceration rates (though even that's leveled off the past 2-3 years), coupled with ... who knows what.

[Plantagenet]

The authors of Freakonomics said that abortion rates were the cause of the decline in the crime rate starting in the early 90's, not "demographcis" per se.

Increases in abortion rates in the US contributed to a decrease in native-born young people about two decades later. The lower numbers of young men resulted in less crime than otherwise would've occurred. Ask someone for help if you still don't understand this simple idea.

illegal immigration soared in the 90's and 00's (until a few years ago)

You are just repeating what I said in my post.

------------------------

Lets try once more.

In spite of massive increases in the poverty rate to record levels under Obama, the crime rate went down last year. Large decreases in the rate of illegal immigration of young men over the last couple of years may be responsible for the large drop in the crime rate seen last year, as most crimes are committed by young men.



Cheers!

[copious.abundance]

Earth to Planetagent:

1. Your first post said absolutely nothing about abortion rates. You merely said "demographics." I replied by clarifying what Freakonomics actually said. You now appear to be covering up your omission.

2. I repeat: Even as illegal immigration rates soared in the 90's and the first half of the 2000's, crime rates fell. The decline we saw last year was nothing but a continuation of the trend which began in 1992. Thus, we can say little or nothing about the effects of illegal immigration on the crime rate. If anything, looking at the numbers alone would suggest that an increase in the numbers of immigrants has helped contribute to a declining rate. There is research to back this up.

Sampson and colleagues recently examined more than 3,000 violent acts committed in Chicago from 1995 to 2003, analyzing police records, census data and a survey of more than 8,000 residents. They discovered what Sampson calls the "Latino Paradox" — first-generation Mexican immigrants were 45% less likely to engage in violence than third-generation Americans. This pattern continued into the second generation, which was 22% less likely to be violent. Similar trends have been seen in New York and Miami, both of which have large immigrant enclaves. "Immigrant communities are often responsible for revitalizing the urban neighborhoods that they live in," Sampson says. The irony of people's popular misconceptions, he adds, is "that the longer one is exposed to American culture, the more likely you are to participate in violence."

This is also true in California, for example.

Unfortunately, it's hard to distinguish legal from illegal immigrant crime rates, but as a whole, the two grouped together actually are less crime prone than the natives or later-generation immigrants. Even for Hispanics.

[Plantagenet]

Your first post said absolutely nothing about abortion rates. You merely said "demographics."

You clearly don't know what the word "demographics" means.

Crime is statistically related to the number of young men in a society. You can abort all the fetuses you want, but if there is massive immigration of young men the demographics of that society will change with a concomitant effect on the crime rate.

....immigrant crime rates...

You believe that young immigrants do not commit many crimes. But numerous studies that show that immigrants actually do commit numerous crimes.

1. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that immigrants (legal and illegal) comprise 20 percent of inmates in prisons and jails. The foreign-born are 15.4 percent of the nation’s adult population.

2. Under contract to DHS in 2004, Fentress, Inc., reviewed 8.1 million inmate records from state prison systems and 45 large county jails. They found that 22 percent of inmates were foreign-born.

3. The 287(g) program and related efforts have found high rates of illegal alien incarceration in some communities.
Maricopa County, Ariz.: 22 percent of felons are illegal aliens;
Lake County, Ill.: 19 percent of jail inmates are illegal aliens;
Collier County, Fla.: 20 to 22 percent of jail inmates and arrestees are illegal aliens;
Weld County, Colo.: 12.8 to 15.2 percent of those jailed are illegal aliens.
DHS states that it has identified 221,000 non-citizens in the nation’s jails. This equals 11 to 15 percent of the jail population. Non-citizens comprise only 8.6 percent of the nation’s total adult population.

4. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that 26.4 percent of inmates in federal prisons are non-U.S. citizens. Non-citizens are 8.6 percent of the nation’s adult population.

5. A Pew Hispanic Center study found that, of those sentenced for federal crimes in 2007, non-citizen Hispanics were 74 percent of immigration offenders, 25 percent of drug offenders, 8 percent of white collar offenders, and 6 percent of firearms offenders. Non-citizen Hispanics are 5.1 percent of the nation’s adult population.

6. New Census data from 2007 show a 146 percent increase in immigrant incarceration 2000 to 2007 — yet, the overall immigrant population grew only 22 percent.

7. The Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities shows that 8.1 percent of prisoners in state prisons are immigrants (legal and illegal). However, the survey excludes jails and relies on inmate self-identification, which is likely to understate the number of immigrants.

8. In 2009, 57 percent of the 76 fugitive murderers most wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were foreign-born.

9. A 2009 analysis by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics found that crime rates were higher in metropolitan areas that received large numbers of legal immigrants, contradicting several older cross-city comparisons.

10. From 1998 to 2007, 816,000 criminal aliens were removed from the United States because of a criminal charge or conviction. This is equal to about one-fifth of the nation’s total jail and prison population. These figures do not include those removed for the lesser offense of living or working in the country illegally.

[ColossalContrarian]

This seems misleading I believe because it appears to be relating a one to one ratio of violent crime to one victim. I think a better example would be if we could see the ratio of violent crime to number of victims.

For example there may be less violent episodes but the episodes involve multiple victims. Does that count as one crime or is it one crime for each victim?

The Virginia Tech shooting for example or the crimes in which someone kills an entire family (maybe their own, and then suicide them self). Is each individual murder a crime or is the whole entire thing a crime?

[copious.abundance]

Your first post said absolutely nothing about abortion rates. You merely said "demographics."

You clearly don't know what the word "demographics" means.

LOL!!! I've got degrees in geography and urban planning. I've spent countless days, hours, months and years studying demographics. Citing the word "demographics" as you did does not imply that "abortion" is being referred to. Neither does citing the term "proportion of young males."

Crime is statistically related to the number of young men in a society. You can abort all the fetuses you want, but if there is massive immigration of young men the demographics of that society will change with a concomitant effect on the crime rate.

This is getting fun! So, first it was just "demographics" and "proportion of young males." Then when I pointed out the abortion angle suddenly it became, "Oh yeah, it's about abortion and the proportion of young males." Then when I pointed out your claim about the criminality of immigrants it's now shifted to, "Oh, well the young male immigrants are replacing the aborted males."



And BTW, due to gender-preference and abortion in China, India and some other nations, males disproportionately outnumber females. So tell me - why aren't crime rates sky-high in those nations?

Your theory fails miserably.

You believe that young immigrants do not commit many crimes. But numerous studies that show that immigrants actually do commit numerous crimes ...

I'm so sorry you've got a wee bit of a phobia over the Little Brown People. Here is some help from the California link above:

Contrary to public perceptions, Krisberg also points to how immigrants are vastly underrepresented in California prisons. Noncitizens make up 27 percent of California's population – but only 11 percent of its prison population. That underrepresentation seems to apply to illegal immigrants as well. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement places "holds" on foreign-born inmates eligible for deportation. But over the past decade, as the state's prison population rose by 3 percent, the number of "holds" placed by ICE in California actually declined by 14 percent.

In fact, the PPIC report cited above notes that foreign-born California residents are incarcerated at a rate of 161 per 100,000, compared to a rate of 259 per 100,000 for U.S.-born Californians.

To help you out, here's my suggestion for you: Go to your nearest Mexican restaurant, and when the waiter or waitress with a Spanish accent comes by to take your order, think to yourself, "This person is less likely to harm me or steal something from me than a native-born American." If you do this each time you encounter one of these people, you will eventually get over your phobia. And after some practice you'll become a much more pleasant person.

[copious.abundance]

This seems misleading I believe because it appears to be relating a one to one ratio of violent crime to one victim. I think a better example would be if we could see the ratio of violent crime to number of victims.

For example there may be less violent episodes but the episodes involve multiple victims. Does that count as one crime or is it one crime for each victim?

The Virginia Tech shooting for example or the crimes in which someone kills an entire family (maybe their own, and then suicide them self). Is each individual murder a crime or is the whole entire thing a crime?

That would indeed be a possible bias, but is there any evidence that more crimes are multi-victim crimes than they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don't know of any.

In fact, last week the Department of Justice reported that violent crime fell 12% last year. They used an entirely different methodology than the FBI: The DOJ uses a household survey whereas the FBI counts crimes reported to the police. If the number of crime incidents were going down, but the number of victims remained the same or increased, a household survey would reflect that.

In other words, if you had a population of 100, and one year 2 crimes with 2 victims were committed, and the next year only 1 crime with 4 victims were committed, the FBI data would show crime decreasing by 50%, but the DOJ survey would show crime increasing by 50%. But since both surveys show decreases, that would suggest there aren't more multi-victim crimes. In fact, since the household survey showed a larger decrease in crime, that would suggest there are fewer multi-victim crimes (though in fairness the two methodologies don't count exactly the same thing so it's hard to tell; for example, you can't survey a dead person and ask them if they've been murdered in the past year).

[ColossalContrarian]

This seems misleading I believe because it appears to be relating a one to one ratio of violent crime to one victim. I think a better example would be if we could see the ratio of violent crime to number of victims.

For example there may be less violent episodes but the episodes involve multiple victims. Does that count as one crime or is it one crime for each victim?

The Virginia Tech shooting for example or the crimes in which someone kills an entire family (maybe their own, and then suicide them self). Is each individual murder a crime or is the whole entire thing a crime?

That would indeed be a possible bias, but is there any evidence that more crimes are multi-victim crimes than they were 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don't know of any.

In fact, last week the Department of Justice reported that violent crime fell 12% last year. They used an entirely different methodology than the FBI: The DOJ uses a household survey whereas the FBI counts crimes reported to the police. If the number of crime incidents were going down, but the number of victims remained the same or increased, a household survey would reflect that.

In other words, if you had a population of 100, and one year 2 crimes with 2 victims were committed, and the next year only 1 crime with 4 victims were committed, the FBI data would show crime decreasing by 50%, but the DOJ survey would show crime increasing by 50%. But since both surveys show decreases, that would suggest there aren't more multi-victim crimes. In fact, since the household survey showed a larger decrease in crime, that would suggest there are fewer multi-victim crimes (though in fairness the two methodologies don't count exactly the same thing so it's hard to tell; for example, you can't survey a dead person and ask them if they've been murdered in the past year).

So my next question would be, is suicide a crime? It appears to be but from quick googl'ing I can't find current data, most appears to be from 2008. You find data fast OF2 but I'll see if I can come up with anything more current on my own.

If we use the FBI data or the DOJ data we run into a problem because how would a crime a person does to them self be calculated? This seems to be a bit of a paradox since suicide rates are up.

[copious.abundance]

I think suicides are considered a mental or psychological problem rather than a crime (after all, you're only harming yourself) but regardless, according to this, US suicide rates have remained fairly constant anyway. Looks like a small uptick, is about it.


LINK

[Plantagenet]

I've got degrees in geography and urban planning. I've spent countless days, hours, months and years studying demographics.

You have my sympathies. But don't feel bad about your limitations--- even plodders like yourself who have to struggle so hard to learn even the simplest subjects sometimes still make useful contributions.

Cheers!

[ColossalContrarian]

I think suicides are considered a mental or psychological problem rather than a crime (after all, you're only harming yourself) but regardless, according to this, US suicide rates have remained fairly constant anyway. Looks like a small uptick, is about it.


LINK

OF2, what kind of chart is that 2007! The recession was just a tiny baby in 2007,

See what I mean about finding current data, even the question of whether or not it's a violent crime is up for debate!

[ColossalContrarian]

Returning to the topic at hand, I think increased gun ownership and concealed carry is
playing a big part in the decline of crime.

You'd be surprised about how many CCW people defending other people actually end up in Prison. It's even questionable in cases where the person is defending them self or a family member. Just like they teach you CCW class, if you pull the trigger to protect someone else, you better be ready to spend the rest of your life in prison for that person!

Also, someone carrying and protecting them self technically still shows a crime happened. Be it attempted robbery/murder/rape.

I'm not sure how deterred criminals are about CCW, open carry would be a better deterrent, which is legal where I live as long as you're on the streets and not inside a building.

[copious.abundance]

OF2, what kind of chart is that 2007! The recession was just a tiny baby in 2007,

Before I posted that I actually checked the CDC website first (the CDC is the entity who tracks suicides nationally). That was the latest year they had data for.