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When the recession started, I wrongly beleived like many people that the crime rate would skyrocket.
In fact its continued to drop at a record setting pace.
Why? Theres more poor people, more desperate people, why hasn't it increased? There has to be concrete reasons.
It can't be cause all the criminals are locked up because kids growing into criminals is a never ending process. Are criminals just not as hardcore as they used to be? Maybe theres more criminals now, but less experienced criminals? Less armed robbers and killers and more dimebag weed sellers?
There's no apparent relation between violent crime rates (especially murder rates) and the state of the economy. This is true globally as well - countries like Spain (with 20%+ unemployment), or slow-growth Japan have actually seen their violent crime rates drop over time. The notion that a bad economy causes violent crime to increase has no real basis.
Legalized abortion is a big one, leads to fewer neglected kids out there who end up in lives of crime. Also there's stuff like video games and internet to keep kids off the street. Back in the 70's and 80's, there was a lot less for young people to do. Now you have people in the hood just Tweeting or playing Angry Birds instead of roaming around causing trouble.
The drop in crime in big world class American cities can be chalked up to gentrification. The major hub cities of NYC, DC, LA and SF have seen great reductions in crime because many areas that used to be the hood are no longer the hood. After a while, rich mostly White people realized "Wow, DC, NYC and SF are waaay to pretty be occupied by a bunch of minorities shooting each other and selling drugs." Formerly high crime ghetto neighborhoods that used to have dirt cheap real estate in NYC, DC, LA and SF have skyrocketed because the former residents, which more often than not happened to be poor Black folks, were pushed out of the cities entirely due to high cost of living brought by gentrification. Decrepit post-WWII housing projects are demolished and replaced with million dollar condos. Why wouldn't big cities want to do this? Having rich people around stimulates a city's economy, no doubt.
The effect of gentrification is so apparent in a city like San Francisco to the point that there are almost zero Black people left in the entire city! No city in America has seen such a dramatic drop in its Black population as the most liberal county in America which is San Francisco, California. The remaining Black population is extremely impoverished living in some of the worst ghetto areas in the United States in the tucked away pockets of Southeast SF. Can you really blame Black people for fleeing SF? SF only has a higher murder rate for Blacks than Oakland (Oakland is only *gasp* the statistically third most dangerous city in America) as well as pretty much every big city in America and the only remaining Black neighborhood in SF has some of the worst projects in the nation and is sitting on the most toxic waste dump on the West Coast in Hunter's Point.
SF is not alone here. However, cities like NYC still have hundreds of thousands of poor Blacks and Latinos living in towering high-rise projects throughout the city. Why has crime in NYC dropped so dramatically over the past 15+ years? In cities like NYC, the army of police keeps crime down. An out-of-towner will be completely shocked how completely dead the streets of NYC in most places are most of the time. Whenever there is an event where something could pop off (i.e. Puerto Rican Day Parade every June), there is literally a cop every five feet in NYC!
In more ghetto cities like Baltimore, statistical redefinition of crimes has made it seem the like the crime rate is going down when in actuality, the crime rate has been pretty steady. Unlike most other big cities in America, Heroin is the drug of choice in Baltimore. During the 80's, Crack cocaine replaced the use of the Heroin in most big cities. But shooting dope in Baltimore never went out of style. The exclusive South American Heroin that is sold on the streets of Baltimore is a huge part of the economy of that city. Dope in Baltimore isn't going anywhere and neither is the carnage and violence associated with the drug trade. Mayor Martin O'Malley was notorious for calling the shift to redefine crimes in Baltimore to make it look like crime was dropping when it wasn't.
Also, in other notorious cities like Oakland, police are no longer even responding to crimes like burglary and car wrecks. This is because massive numbers of police have been laid off in Oakland. Oakland is not alone here. Cops are being laid off in cities by the hundreds from Newark, NJ to Miami. How can more crimes be reported when police aren't even responding to many types of crimes anymore?! Of course crimes aren't going to be reported if there aren't as many cops around to bust criminals.
Last edited by goldenchild08; 01-25-2012 at 03:39 PM..
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