4 ms·

Crime rates go up when inequality goes up.

by truckerbill 5y ago

KSteffensen 5y ago
Is crime rate proportional to inequality or poverty?
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Inequality implies poverty, so this question is pointless.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    No, they are orthogonal. A society split between middle class workers and billionaires still has inequality without poverty. A society of 100% poverty has no inequality.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      But that does not actually happen. In practice, inequality means poverty.
    - jan_Inkepa 5y ago
      Some people define poverty as being in the lower X percentile of wealth. > https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07096/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07... "Two commonly used measures are: people in relative low income – living in households with income below 60% of the median in that year; people in absolute low income – living in households with income below 60% of (inflation-adjusted) median income in some base year, usually 2010/11." This is however a bureaucratic definition of poverty that I don't accept as capturing the everyday meaning, but I thought it might be of interest to mention. I remember being under the poverty line and thinking "this doesn't count. I don't accept that I'm living in poverty." Knowing these technical uses made me regard official-sounding news and reports about 'poverty' quite differently. (The bottom of the article talks about a group giving a more lay-compatible definition "The Social Metrics Commission (SMC) proposed a new based on the extent to which someone’s resources meet their needs. This accounts for differences among households such as costs of childcare and disability, savings and access to assets." which seems more meaningful if you're interested about absolute standards of living).
      - cloverich 5y ago
        That's good to know. I had similar feelings about wealth. At one point my wife and I were in the bottom 10% or lower, because of our student debt. Yeah when we graduated medical and dental school we had pretty negative net worth. But... does it really make sense to claim we had no wealth? Or that someone who made 20k a year with no debt should trade places with us? I think wealth and inequality studies are important, and if they don't address this issue they are misleading, even meaningless statistics.
    - orwin 5y ago
      Unless poverty is relative.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - bildung 5y ago
    No, it's actually only the inequality, not poverty, that correlates with high crime rates.
- hnaccount_rng 5y ago
  Since poverty is (at least typically) defined relative to some average those two things are not as disconnected as you may think. But in general I'd expect crime to be a "least worst option" choice and I seem to remember research to that effect. Although I wouldn't be able to find that now again, so take it with an appropriate amount of salt.
iamben 5y ago
Was discussing this with some friends recently. The general agreement was social media has exacerbated inequality. It was always there to a varying degree - but there's a big difference between seeing a movie star or musician flexing expensive clothes and shoes on MTV or in a magazine to seeing Johnny Average who went to your school flexing them on Instagram. One is attainable and "why don't I have this", the other you don't worry about. Furthermore we seem to have such an easy money culture right now - if you get caught in a crypto or NFT or memestock or whatever bubble on FB or Twitter, 'everyone' is rich with no effort (and they can teach you how for 99$ a month!) - why shouldn't you be rich without working?!
ramoz 5y ago
Do crime rates go up when you stop policing actual crimes?
- callmeal 5y ago
  > Do crime rates go up when you stop policing actual crimes? No they don't. See all the studies that disprove the "broken windows theory" that tried to prove that crime rates go down when you enforce policing. https://carder.uk/threads/does-broken-windows-theory-work.118226/ https://carder.uk/threads/does-broken-windows-theory-work.11... The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators." The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators." First of all, the drop in crime in New York occurred simultaneously with the corresponding process in the entire United States. In another study, Harcourt notes that the drop in crime rates in New York coincided with the end of the crack drug epidemic. Christina Sterbenz adds that this trend has been fueled by declining unemployment (during the 1990s, its rate fell by 40%). Criminologist Ralph Taylor is sure that socio-economic is a significant factor that affects the crime rate. Returning to the experiment with two cars - in the Bronx initially there was a low level of welfare, and in wealthy Palo Alto, a researcher must intervene in the experiment to provoke vandalism. The theory of broken windows has also failed to pass the test of a massive social experiment. In 1994, the US government introduced the Moving to Opportunity program, which relocated 4,800 impoverished families to prime locations. The program was implemented in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore. Three quarters of the resettled households were on the brink of poverty, and two thirds of the participants were African American. According to the theory, in the new environment the level of their involvement in offenses should have, but this did not happen, since the move did not improve their financial situation, but emphasized the social gap with their neighbors.

Crime rates go up when inequality goes up.

KSteffensen 5y ago

Is crime rate proportional to inequality or poverty?

user-the-name 5y ago
Inequality implies poverty, so this question is pointless.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  No, they are orthogonal. A society split between middle class workers and billionaires still has inequality without poverty. A society of 100% poverty has no inequality.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    But that does not actually happen. In practice, inequality means poverty.
  - jan_Inkepa 5y ago
    Some people define poverty as being in the lower X percentile of wealth. > https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07096/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07... "Two commonly used measures are: people in relative low income – living in households with income below 60% of the median in that year; people in absolute low income – living in households with income below 60% of (inflation-adjusted) median income in some base year, usually 2010/11." This is however a bureaucratic definition of poverty that I don't accept as capturing the everyday meaning, but I thought it might be of interest to mention. I remember being under the poverty line and thinking "this doesn't count. I don't accept that I'm living in poverty." Knowing these technical uses made me regard official-sounding news and reports about 'poverty' quite differently. (The bottom of the article talks about a group giving a more lay-compatible definition "The Social Metrics Commission (SMC) proposed a new based on the extent to which someone’s resources meet their needs. This accounts for differences among households such as costs of childcare and disability, savings and access to assets." which seems more meaningful if you're interested about absolute standards of living).
    - cloverich 5y ago
      That's good to know. I had similar feelings about wealth. At one point my wife and I were in the bottom 10% or lower, because of our student debt. Yeah when we graduated medical and dental school we had pretty negative net worth. But... does it really make sense to claim we had no wealth? Or that someone who made 20k a year with no debt should trade places with us? I think wealth and inequality studies are important, and if they don't address this issue they are misleading, even meaningless statistics.
  - orwin 5y ago
    Unless poverty is relative.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- bildung 5y ago
  No, it's actually only the inequality, not poverty, that correlates with high crime rates.
hnaccount_rng 5y ago
Since poverty is (at least typically) defined relative to some average those two things are not as disconnected as you may think. But in general I'd expect crime to be a "least worst option" choice and I seem to remember research to that effect. Although I wouldn't be able to find that now again, so take it with an appropriate amount of salt.

iamben 5y ago

Was discussing this with some friends recently. The general agreement was social media has exacerbated inequality. It was always there to a varying degree - but there's a big difference between seeing a movie star or musician flexing expensive clothes and shoes on MTV or in a magazine to seeing Johnny Average who went to your school flexing them on Instagram. One is attainable and "why don't I have this", the other you don't worry about. Furthermore we seem to have such an easy money culture right now - if you get caught in a crypto or NFT or memestock or whatever bubble on FB or Twitter, 'everyone' is rich with no effort (and they can teach you how for 99$ a month!) - why shouldn't you be rich without working?!

ramoz 5y ago

Do crime rates go up when you stop policing actual crimes?

callmeal 5y ago
> Do crime rates go up when you stop policing actual crimes? No they don't. See all the studies that disprove the "broken windows theory" that tried to prove that crime rates go down when you enforce policing. https://carder.uk/threads/does-broken-windows-theory-work.118226/ https://carder.uk/threads/does-broken-windows-theory-work.11... The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators." The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators." First of all, the drop in crime in New York occurred simultaneously with the corresponding process in the entire United States. In another study, Harcourt notes that the drop in crime rates in New York coincided with the end of the crack drug epidemic. Christina Sterbenz adds that this trend has been fueled by declining unemployment (during the 1990s, its rate fell by 40%). Criminologist Ralph Taylor is sure that socio-economic is a significant factor that affects the crime rate. Returning to the experiment with two cars - in the Bronx initially there was a low level of welfare, and in wealthy Palo Alto, a researcher must intervene in the experiment to provoke vandalism. The theory of broken windows has also failed to pass the test of a massive social experiment. In 1994, the US government introduced the Moving to Opportunity program, which relocated 4,800 impoverished families to prime locations. The program was implemented in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore. Three quarters of the resettled households were on the brink of poverty, and two thirds of the participants were African American. According to the theory, in the new environment the level of their involvement in offenses should have, but this did not happen, since the move did not improve their financial situation, but emphasized the social gap with their neighbors.