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The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: - https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/30/new-fbi-data-violent-crime-still-fallin

The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: - https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/30/new-fbi-data-violent-crime-still-falling https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/30/new-fbi-data-v... - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/17/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/17/facts-about... The latter indicates that, depending on which data you use, the violent crime rate dropped 50–75% between 1993 and 2018 (the larger drop is from BJS, which has some methodology for estimating unreported crimes). The property crime rate dropped at 50–70% over the same time period. Various actors in society—police gangs (sorry, “unions”), public prosecutors, for-profit prison operators, and straight up fascists—have been stoking fears of Americans for decades such that there are people who genuinely believe that America (as a whole) has more crime even when the numbers completely put a lie to that. I’m certain that the leaks from this will reinforce what we should already know: America is increasingly a surveillance state of its police against its people, that the police rarely end up doing the jobs that they are nominally hired for (solving crimes), and that there has been an overall reduction in crime but an increase in policing outsized compared to the value police forces provide. Don’t believe the bollocks.

treis 6y ago
You're conflating rate of change with the current number. Yes, crime is dropping but the US is a big outlier in violent crime compared to any other large 1st world country. There are 5.35 murders per 100k in the US. The closest comparable country is Canada at 1.68.
- pdonis 6y ago
  More precisely, certain areas of the US (parts of certain large cities) are a big outlier in violent crime compared to any other large 1st world country. The rest of the US is not.
  - treis 6y ago
    This is a pretty nebulous statement, but I don't think there's a lot of truth here. "Certain areas" makes it seem like the discrepancy is contained, but it's not. Pretty much every decent sized city in the US has a murder rate at least several times greater than any major European city. If you compare a rich suburb to Europe's average then yeah, it's probably comparable. But any sort of apples to apples comparison will show that the U.S. has a much higher violent crime rate.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > Pretty much every decent sized city in the US has a murder rate at least several times greater than any major European city Nope. As a poster elsewhere in this thread noted, it's less than the top 100 cities in the US. There are a lot more than 100 "decent sized" cities in the US.
      - treis 6y ago
        That was me, and again "decent sized" is nebulous. Either way, you said: >certain areas of the US (parts of certain large cities) So unless we're counting Boise at 220k and ~100 others like it as "parts of certain large cities" then your statement isn't accurate.
        pdonis 6y ago
        > unless we're counting Boise at 220k and ~100 others like it as "parts of certain large cities" Yes. There are a lot more than 100 cities in the US, and a lot of places where people are that aren't cities. My point is that citing one single "crime rate" for the US misrepresents what's actually going on; there are basically two crime rates, the "cities" one (or however you want to label it) and the "everywhere else" one, and only the former is significantly larger than other developed countries.
macspoofing 6y ago
>The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: Come on. And those are aggregate numbers. There is variability between different states, and rural vs urban crime. For example, I just looked up the homicide rate in Atlanta Georgia (17 per 100k), vs Oslo, Norway (0.5 per 100k). That's crazy big. >have been stoking fears of Americans for decades such that there are people who genuinely believe that America (as a whole) has more crime even when the numbers completely put a lie to that. Things were really bad in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The downtown cores of most major cities were dangerous. Don't pretend it was OK before. Things like the 90s 'crime bill' didn't just come out of nowhere. It was bad. Things only started changing the late 90s and early 2000s when cities went through resistance and yes, crime started falling.
- halostatue 6y ago
  America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Get them out of the criminal hands, get them out of non-criminal hands, and get them out of cop hands. You’re right that the 90s `crime bills` didn’t come out of nowhere. But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)—because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. They _built_ the problems we have today. The whole idea of a “super predator” was as much a racist invention as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens in Cadillacs”. Civil Forfeiture and RICO sounded like a great idea when it was to be used against white-collar beneficiaries of criminal enterprises. Except that’s not how it got used, and so cops in all jurisdictions started rolling up money from regular citizens just like a regular protection racket, except without the protection. It was _meant_ to be used against the cartels, but instead it got used as an income booster. What made communities safer? It _wasn’t_ giving cops and prosecutors more powers. Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. Cities are _safer_ when you have people spending money in them and living there. Suburbs and exurbs and white flight made downtowns more dangerous by taking all of the money out of the cities and leaving people in desperate straits. Reurbanization and gentrification reversed the trends (although gentrification has its own problems). Related to the use of aggregate numbers, read the Pew link. It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).
rasz 6y ago
'Two victims died in at least 21 shootings across four NYC boroughs between Friday and Saturday, officials said' https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/weekly-nyc-shootings-soar-358-over-last-year-data-shows/2478075/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/weekly-nyc-shootings-s...

treis 6y ago

You're conflating rate of change with the current number. Yes, crime is dropping but the US is a big outlier in violent crime compared to any other large 1st world country. There are 5.35 murders per 100k in the US. The closest comparable country is Canada at 1.68.

pdonis 6y ago
More precisely, certain areas of the US (parts of certain large cities) are a big outlier in violent crime compared to any other large 1st world country. The rest of the US is not.
- treis 6y ago
  This is a pretty nebulous statement, but I don't think there's a lot of truth here. "Certain areas" makes it seem like the discrepancy is contained, but it's not. Pretty much every decent sized city in the US has a murder rate at least several times greater than any major European city. If you compare a rich suburb to Europe's average then yeah, it's probably comparable. But any sort of apples to apples comparison will show that the U.S. has a much higher violent crime rate.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Pretty much every decent sized city in the US has a murder rate at least several times greater than any major European city Nope. As a poster elsewhere in this thread noted, it's less than the top 100 cities in the US. There are a lot more than 100 "decent sized" cities in the US.
    - treis 6y ago
      That was me, and again "decent sized" is nebulous. Either way, you said: >certain areas of the US (parts of certain large cities) So unless we're counting Boise at 220k and ~100 others like it as "parts of certain large cities" then your statement isn't accurate.
      - pdonis 6y ago
        > unless we're counting Boise at 220k and ~100 others like it as "parts of certain large cities" Yes. There are a lot more than 100 cities in the US, and a lot of places where people are that aren't cities. My point is that citing one single "crime rate" for the US misrepresents what's actually going on; there are basically two crime rates, the "cities" one (or however you want to label it) and the "everywhere else" one, and only the former is significantly larger than other developed countries.

macspoofing 6y ago

>The crime rate in America is relatively low according to official data: Come on. And those are aggregate numbers. There is variability between different states, and rural vs urban crime. For example, I just looked up the homicide rate in Atlanta Georgia (17 per 100k), vs Oslo, Norway (0.5 per 100k). That's crazy big. >have been stoking fears of Americans for decades such that there are people who genuinely believe that America (as a whole) has more crime even when the numbers completely put a lie to that. Things were really bad in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The downtown cores of most major cities were dangerous. Don't pretend it was OK before. Things like the 90s 'crime bill' didn't just come out of nowhere. It was bad. Things only started changing the late 90s and early 2000s when cities went through resistance and yes, crime started falling.

halostatue 6y ago
America has a very easy answer to reducing the death rate, but that it cannot or will not take: get rid of the guns. Get them out of the criminal hands, get them out of non-criminal hands, and get them out of cop hands. You’re right that the 90s `crime bills` didn’t come out of nowhere. But they didn’t come out of a “we need to make our communities safer” perspective (that was merely the sales pitch)—because they increased criminal penalties on acts that generally affect low-income and minority “criminals”. They _built_ the problems we have today. The whole idea of a “super predator” was as much a racist invention as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens in Cadillacs”. Civil Forfeiture and RICO sounded like a great idea when it was to be used against white-collar beneficiaries of criminal enterprises. Except that’s not how it got used, and so cops in all jurisdictions started rolling up money from regular citizens just like a regular protection racket, except without the protection. It was _meant_ to be used against the cartels, but instead it got used as an income booster. What made communities safer? It _wasn’t_ giving cops and prosecutors more powers. Reinvestment in those communities. Education. Treatment for trauma. Those things _all_ made far more difference in making communities safer than any single power given to cops since the 90s. Those things just destroyed some of the communities even more. Cities are _safer_ when you have people spending money in them and living there. Suburbs and exurbs and white flight made downtowns more dangerous by taking all of the money out of the cities and leaving people in desperate straits. Reurbanization and gentrification reversed the trends (although gentrification has its own problems). Related to the use of aggregate numbers, read the Pew link. It talks about the rural/urban variability and about local perception of crime (people believe that there’s more crime across America, but most do not believe that there’s more crime in _their_ area).

rasz 6y ago

'Two victims died in at least 21 shootings across four NYC boroughs between Friday and Saturday, officials said' https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/weekly-nyc-shootings-soar-358-over-last-year-data-shows/2478075/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/weekly-nyc-shootings-s...