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This is extremely uncritical at best and copaganda at worst. We also lag behind those comparison countries in hundreds of other metrics--food security, housing,

This is extremely uncritical at best and copaganda at worst. We also lag behind those comparison countries in hundreds of other metrics--food security, housing, segregation, relative public spending on healthcare, education, services, etc. What would make more of a difference for crime--expanding police budgets in cities that already outspend dozens of foreign militaries or investing those resources in systemic changes to provide people wellbeing and economic stability?

rayiner 4y ago
Crime isn’t caused by the lack of social services. Villages in Bangladesh have less crime than many parts of America. Indeed, America itself has higher crime than it did in the 1950s, even though most modern social programs didn’t exist back then.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  This is misleading, crime massively increased from 1960 to 1980 and has been steadily decreasing ever since.
  - kingofkyiv 4y ago
    It correlates with access to abortion interestingly. Of which blacks use it the most.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      I know this was made popular by freakonomics but it has since been disproven. Crime rates dropped in other countries that didn't have Roe v Wade and the data better fits the hypothesis that the drop in crime was caused by the banning of leaded gasoline.
      - kingofkyiv 4y ago
        Interesting! Thanks for this comment and update.
- welshwelsh 4y ago
  In modern economies, social services reduce crime. That doesn't mean that crime is caused by a lack of social services. Part of the reason that social services are necessary is that modern society does not support traditional support networks such as those you might find in a village in Bangladesh. Many people today don't even have families they can turn to for help. Increased crime rates today compared to the 50s are largely due to higher rates of reporting. In the 50s, crime in low income neighborhoods wasn't reported. It's much safer today, and continues to get safer every year. Countries with excellent social safety nets, such as Finland, Japan and Germany have much lower crime than the US.
  - kingofkyiv 4y ago
    Racial homogeneity is proven to also contribute to lower crime rates. A very under looked reason.
  - usednet 4y ago
    In addition, the 50s were a period of high wealth equality even though there were less social programs. After the Great Compression ended crime began to increase.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Increased crime rates today compared to the 50s are largely due to higher rates of reporting. In the 50s, crime in low income neighborhoods wasn't reported. It's much safer today, and continues to get safer every year. Source? Homicide rates have been well reported since the 19th century, and they track the same general pattern as violent crime rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States. Also, I’m not sure how underreporting is an explanation since crime was higher at the turn of the 20th century and decreased after that. > Countries with excellent social safety nets, such as Finland, Japan and Germany have much lower crime than the US. Those countries are also homogenous and socially rigid compared to the US. Homicide rates in Germany and Scandinavia fell below the 5 per 100k (the current US level) way back in the early 1800s, long before the modern welfare state: https://ourworldindata.org/exports/homicide-rates-across-western-europe-10583a5a083e2959491228e50201be98_v4_850x600.svg https://ourworldindata.org/exports/homicide-rates-across-wes... You picked Japan, Germany, and Finland, three countries that happen to have high social spending and low crime. But Korea also has low crime and has lower social spending than the US: https://mobile.twitter.com/oecd_social/status/987352302578274304 https://mobile.twitter.com/oecd_social/status/98735230257827.... By contrast, Brazil has a very high crime rate with similar levels of social spending as the US. The data just doesn’t tell the story about the root causes of crime that you want to tell.
jdminhbg 4y ago
> We also lag behind those comparison countries in hundreds of other metrics--food security, housing, segregation, relative public spending on healthcare, education, services, etc. Most of this is simply not true, even though it feels good to say. For example, US public spending on healthcare is greater than all of these countries: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...
- drewcoo 4y ago
  And because of all the privatization we favor in the US because of "efficiency," many people efficiently extract profit from that US spending. Whether on prisons or health care. I sleep easily, knowing it's for profitable efficiency and not merely corruption.
- usednet 4y ago
  Spending != Quality/effectiveness of care
  - jdminhbg 4y ago
    I’m not sure what the point of this particular goalpost movement is, but the US ranks quite highly on measures of treatment quality as well. Those are of course much vaguer than the relatively easy-to-measure dollar amount.
    - usednet 4y ago
      What is your definition of “ranks quite highly?” The US ranks near or dead last among developed countries on access to care, outcomes, efficiency, equity, etc.
      - jdminhbg 4y ago
        > access to care, outcomes, efficiency, equity Of these, only "outcomes" could reasonably be described by "quality," the rest are a further goalpost pushing. And the US ranks highly on those, (e.g. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-survival-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-su...). The only way to get US outcomes to look bad is to compare things that also include non-health-care inputs, like mortality, which is like comparing a sports medicine clinic to an ER room and concluding the ER room loses more patients.
drewcoo 4y ago
The authors are libertarians, not the people we'd expect to be pushing social services.

rayiner 4y ago

Crime isn’t caused by the lack of social services. Villages in Bangladesh have less crime than many parts of America. Indeed, America itself has higher crime than it did in the 1950s, even though most modern social programs didn’t exist back then.

adamsmith143 4y ago
This is misleading, crime massively increased from 1960 to 1980 and has been steadily decreasing ever since.
- kingofkyiv 4y ago
  It correlates with access to abortion interestingly. Of which blacks use it the most.
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    I know this was made popular by freakonomics but it has since been disproven. Crime rates dropped in other countries that didn't have Roe v Wade and the data better fits the hypothesis that the drop in crime was caused by the banning of leaded gasoline.
    - kingofkyiv 4y ago
      Interesting! Thanks for this comment and update.
welshwelsh 4y ago
In modern economies, social services reduce crime. That doesn't mean that crime is caused by a lack of social services. Part of the reason that social services are necessary is that modern society does not support traditional support networks such as those you might find in a village in Bangladesh. Many people today don't even have families they can turn to for help. Increased crime rates today compared to the 50s are largely due to higher rates of reporting. In the 50s, crime in low income neighborhoods wasn't reported. It's much safer today, and continues to get safer every year. Countries with excellent social safety nets, such as Finland, Japan and Germany have much lower crime than the US.
- kingofkyiv 4y ago
  Racial homogeneity is proven to also contribute to lower crime rates. A very under looked reason.
- usednet 4y ago
  In addition, the 50s were a period of high wealth equality even though there were less social programs. After the Great Compression ended crime began to increase.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Increased crime rates today compared to the 50s are largely due to higher rates of reporting. In the 50s, crime in low income neighborhoods wasn't reported. It's much safer today, and continues to get safer every year. Source? Homicide rates have been well reported since the 19th century, and they track the same general pattern as violent crime rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States. Also, I’m not sure how underreporting is an explanation since crime was higher at the turn of the 20th century and decreased after that. > Countries with excellent social safety nets, such as Finland, Japan and Germany have much lower crime than the US. Those countries are also homogenous and socially rigid compared to the US. Homicide rates in Germany and Scandinavia fell below the 5 per 100k (the current US level) way back in the early 1800s, long before the modern welfare state: https://ourworldindata.org/exports/homicide-rates-across-western-europe-10583a5a083e2959491228e50201be98_v4_850x600.svg https://ourworldindata.org/exports/homicide-rates-across-wes... You picked Japan, Germany, and Finland, three countries that happen to have high social spending and low crime. But Korea also has low crime and has lower social spending than the US: https://mobile.twitter.com/oecd_social/status/987352302578274304 https://mobile.twitter.com/oecd_social/status/98735230257827.... By contrast, Brazil has a very high crime rate with similar levels of social spending as the US. The data just doesn’t tell the story about the root causes of crime that you want to tell.

jdminhbg 4y ago

> We also lag behind those comparison countries in hundreds of other metrics--food security, housing, segregation, relative public spending on healthcare, education, services, etc. Most of this is simply not true, even though it feels good to say. For example, US public spending on healthcare is greater than all of these countries: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...

drewcoo 4y ago
And because of all the privatization we favor in the US because of "efficiency," many people efficiently extract profit from that US spending. Whether on prisons or health care. I sleep easily, knowing it's for profitable efficiency and not merely corruption.
usednet 4y ago
Spending != Quality/effectiveness of care
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  I’m not sure what the point of this particular goalpost movement is, but the US ranks quite highly on measures of treatment quality as well. Those are of course much vaguer than the relatively easy-to-measure dollar amount.
  - usednet 4y ago
    What is your definition of “ranks quite highly?” The US ranks near or dead last among developed countries on access to care, outcomes, efficiency, equity, etc.
    - jdminhbg 4y ago
      > access to care, outcomes, efficiency, equity Of these, only "outcomes" could reasonably be described by "quality," the rest are a further goalpost pushing. And the US ranks highly on those, (e.g. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-survival-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-su...). The only way to get US outcomes to look bad is to compare things that also include non-health-care inputs, like mortality, which is like comparing a sports medicine clinic to an ER room and concluding the ER room loses more patients.

drewcoo 4y ago

The authors are libertarians, not the people we'd expect to be pushing social services.