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> as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity This is a big assumption. Do you have anything t

> as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity This is a big assumption. Do you have anything that backs this up? I'd be incredibly surprised if the FED jacked up interest rates, the Federal government cut expenditures or increased taxes to curb inflation we'd see a large fall in crime.

jakelazaroff 3y ago
What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing, created a public healthcare system and made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing?
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  > What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing? Lets imagine homeless people are 3x more likely to commit a crime than the housed. Currently 1 in 800 people are homeless. If you eliminated the homelessness problem you'd end up with less than an even 1% reduction in crime. > Created a public healthcare system? Most crime is committed by young people who have very limited healthcare needs. > made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing I was homeless for a while, and even among the homeless most could eat and were clothed. Such a small % of the population in the U.S. doesn't haven't enough food or clothing that making sure they did couldn't possible drive much of a reduction in crime. Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate.
  - jakelazaroff 3y ago
    > Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate. Sure, because this whole conversation very intentionally ignores the biggest drivers of the crime rate. Most crime is committed by people the “law and order” crowd has no interest in going after. If we really want to make a dent in the crime rate, we should tackle things like wage theft and police misconduct and civil asset forfeiture. Wait — that last one’s not actually a crime, because crime is socially constructed and we’ve decided that stealing is okay if the right people do it. The entire point of this “crime wave” project is to find ways to criminalize people we as a society don’t like.
ajmurmann 3y ago
I'd also like to see some stats on drug abuse and how that relates to crime and homelessness. It anecdotally seems that here in Portland most problematic homeless and criminals are addicted to meth or fentanyl. I know the war on drugs was a disaster and am a great fan of Portugal's approach, but fentanyl and the new meth seem to be a new kind of problem.

jakelazaroff 3y ago

What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing, created a public healthcare system and made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing?

JamesBarney 3y ago
> What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing? Lets imagine homeless people are 3x more likely to commit a crime than the housed. Currently 1 in 800 people are homeless. If you eliminated the homelessness problem you'd end up with less than an even 1% reduction in crime. > Created a public healthcare system? Most crime is committed by young people who have very limited healthcare needs. > made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing I was homeless for a while, and even among the homeless most could eat and were clothed. Such a small % of the population in the U.S. doesn't haven't enough food or clothing that making sure they did couldn't possible drive much of a reduction in crime. Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate.
- jakelazaroff 3y ago
  > Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate. Sure, because this whole conversation very intentionally ignores the biggest drivers of the crime rate. Most crime is committed by people the “law and order” crowd has no interest in going after. If we really want to make a dent in the crime rate, we should tackle things like wage theft and police misconduct and civil asset forfeiture. Wait — that last one’s not actually a crime, because crime is socially constructed and we’ve decided that stealing is okay if the right people do it. The entire point of this “crime wave” project is to find ways to criminalize people we as a society don’t like.

ajmurmann 3y ago

I'd also like to see some stats on drug abuse and how that relates to crime and homelessness. It anecdotally seems that here in Portland most problematic homeless and criminals are addicted to meth or fentanyl. I know the war on drugs was a disaster and am a great fan of Portugal's approach, but fentanyl and the new meth seem to be a new kind of problem.