The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country

downrightmike

Just like abortions in the 70's stopped the super criminals from existing in the 90's. Not having unwanted kids goes a long way to prevent crime. Now we are in the place where people want kids, but can't afford them so they aren't.

erkt

Failure to prosecute crime leads to crime stat drops.

OutOfHere

https://archive.is/ofDew

bm3719

I think the effect is polycausal, but I think there's an important primary one that is often ignored: alienation crossing a threshold. In a tight-knit (below Dunbar's number) society, crime is largely non-existent by our standards, because the tribe and the individual are coextensive. One can't hurt the tribe without also hurting yourself, so while individual interests may not coalign, the overall goals do: the health of the people and therefore the self. As population increases, that coalignment becomes more nebulous, and the individual can more easily gain while hurting the other. This is partly why crime increased as the species civilized, created cities, and exploded the population. This, as an isolated factor, might've increased forever, and most dystopian fiction from the 20th century assumed it would. However, alienation then largely became complete, thanks to technology. This had the contrary effect, because the public surface became a smooth wall, removing much of the opportunity for anti-social behavior. The alienated man now lives in his bubble, without connectivity to the outside world of other individuals. Human emotion, as a pre-req for the anti-social behavior we classify most crime as, required an other, someone to direct it against. It's harder (though not impossible) to get angry at abstract social megastructures like corporations and governments, and even when you do, what are you going to do about it? You can't stab Google, you can at best post something unkind about them (on your Android phone) and the algorithm (your actual interface to the entity you may despise) ignores it. Most of us realize this and don't even bother getting angry. Thankfully, these same non-human entities provide the products we need for emotional regulation. Feeling lonely, bored, understimulated, sexually frustrated? There's a product that will safely mediate those desires and get you back into a metastable, yet ever more alienated, state. So great, we have less crime, sure, but it required the social neutering of the species.

xnx

Would it kill (har har?) to include a chart in a story? https://www.statista.com/statistics/191223/reported-murder-a... ~Half the murder rate now vs. 1990. Worrisome COVID murder increase is returning to average for the past 20 years.

iamnothere

Cheap energy will do that, statistically. It won’t be cheap for much longer, so enjoy the reprieve.