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Steven Pinker talks about the root causes for this in Better Angels of Our Nature. He argues that crime has been trending steadily downward for centuries. There
by beat 8y ago
Steven Pinker talks about the root causes for this in Better Angels of Our Nature. He argues that crime has been trending steadily downward for centuries. There was a blip of increasing crime, at odds with the trends, that lasted from about the early 1960s to the late 1980s, and he offers some explanations for that blip. But in general, crime should continue to fall.
The US homocide rate has been dropping steadily since 1991, from 9.8 to about 4.5 today. (The post-WWII peak was 10.2 in 1980.) It stands to reason that a drop in juvenile crime would track the drop in adult violent crime.
- TomK32 8y agoI though lead paint and lead in gasoline was a good candidate for the blip?
- beat 8y agoPinker attributes it to cultural shifts, not causes like lead paint. I googled and found his discussion of the subject. It's worth reading. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0002.206/--decivilization-in-the-1960s?rgn=main;view=fulltext https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0002.206/--deci...
- frankosaurus 8y agoInteresting read. In Enlightenment Now, Pinker attributes the spike in opioid overdoses and suicides to "the druggy Baby Boomer cohort reaching middle age". (Similarly, the same cohort reached prime crime-committing age during the 1960s-80s spike in violence.)
- rossdavidh 8y agoI really liked Pinker's book, but that was imho one of the weaker sections. For one thing, it more or less says that violence dropped because of "cultural shifts", which is more or less a description of what happened, not an explanation.
- enraged_camel 8y agoYeah, sounds like hand-waving to me.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y agoLead and Roe v Wade are often discussed, but it's one of those issues that's really hard to gain confidence about any particular explanation. It appears likely that both played a role, but to what extent is more difficult to say.
- rootusrootus 8y agoRoe v Wade is pretty far out there, but lead exposure has a lot of decent correlational data from different regions, since it was phased out around the country and around the world at different times.
- rossdavidh 8y agoRoe v Wade is not _that_ far out there. It explains state-level differences for when the decline began, for example. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but it's got some reasonable supporting evidence, enough to at least not be considered "out there".
- rootusrootus 8y agoYou may be right; I recall, though, hearing some fairly convincing counter-arguments at the time the first Roe v Wade hypothesis was floated. But maybe there's been more research since.
- rossdavidh 8y agoThe biggest argument I've heard since then was that, while the abortion rate has gradually declined again since then, the crime rate has not gone back up.
- lostlogin 8y agoDrum’s story has a good summary too. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...
- rossdavidh 8y agoPeter Turchin points to a blip in violence in the 1970's, and the 1920's (think Prohibition), and maybe also the 1870's. These are on top of a long-term downward trend, though.