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>>> They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! In high crime areas when you first experience it, you're pretty sh

>>> They were all recalling stories about times when they'd been mugged like it was normal! In high crime areas when you first experience it, you're pretty shocked. As time goes by, it just becomes part of the landscape and part of your life. You learn to live with it. When I lived on the South Side of Chicago, it was the same way. When I moved in, I was constantly harassed for money by panhandlers and such. I saw people get shot, junkies lying in alleys, all kinds of stuff that make you numb to life in the "big city". I never had a friend who lived in Chicago who hadn't been robbed, mugged, beat up, raped, car broken into, apartment broken into or been in the middle of a drive-by. To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. Glad I moved out after a year or so.

harlanlewis 13y ago
> To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. The phrase 'badge of honor' strikes me as a phrase unlikely to be used by someone actually at a high degree of risk in a crime-ridden neighborhood. So just how different is the experience for different demographics in a high-crime locale? How divorced from a real, perpetual threat are these 'badge of honor' stories? Disclaimer this is difficult to cite appropriately because the DoJ & Bureau of Justice Statistics sites are down due to the federal shutdown, taking lots of data with them. Also, it's a HNews comment, which means I'm writing quickly about something I don't actually know much about. First: parent's comment mentioned the full range of crime, which it's useful to tease apart - violent crime (simple assault), serious violent crime (rape, robbery, aggravated assault), and property crime (car stereos). As a 20s-30s professional white guy in San Francisco, just about everyone I know has an anecdote or two about scary situations. I know people who have been threatened or worse at gunpoint (very recently!), at knifepoint, and at fistpoint (surely there's a word for that). But statistically, most physical violence my demographic experiences are anomalies. We might live and work and walk in high crime neighborhoods, but we're rarely targets. Even rape & sexual assault, in which 80% of victims know their attacker, is much more likely to victimize people with <$40k income (and the rate of violence increases the lower income gets). [1] Other kinds of violence are less likely than rape to victimize acquaintances (50% robbery, 60% aggravated assault), but most of violent crime victims still make less than $35k. It isn't evenly distributed. [2] Put simply, most violent crime occurs between people with lower incomes who know each other. None of this should be too surprising. Next, property crime. The rates of violent crime and property crime are highly correlated. However, property crime is more equal opportunity. Property crime is more likely to be committed by strangers and target across income groups. [4] So while I'm at relatively low risk of physical violence while walking down scary streets, parking a car or locking a bicycle is much higher risk. Now, all of this gets more complicated when we consider a large transient population like SF has, but the gist is that more transients leads to a higher rate of burglary, larceny, and robbery than would be expected of an equal population increase made up of other groups, but not necessarily a higher rate of violent crimes unrelated to taking property. [3] The clumping of violent crime by demographic stands. So, in a sense, I'm agreeing with you - scary neighborhoods do just become a 'part of the landscape'. But only for some of us. This 'landscape' and 'badge of honor' way of experiencing crime is a privilege to those who, relatively speaking, don't have much to worry about. For medium- and high-income individuals with limited or no social ties to other people in the neighborhood, living in a high crime locale is a minor economic problem (potential property loss) easily offset by low rent. There are a whole lot of other quality of life issues correlated with high crime for which I wouldn't judge anyone for wanting to move away from, but the mean streets aren't equally mean to everyone. [1] http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8WlSG0kJ:www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8Wl... [3] http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.pdf http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.... [4] http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf

harlanlewis 13y ago

> To a degree, most people felt it was a badge of honor living in such a dangerous place, experiencing these things and living to tell about it. The phrase 'badge of honor' strikes me as a phrase unlikely to be used by someone actually at a high degree of risk in a crime-ridden neighborhood. So just how different is the experience for different demographics in a high-crime locale? How divorced from a real, perpetual threat are these 'badge of honor' stories? Disclaimer this is difficult to cite appropriately because the DoJ & Bureau of Justice Statistics sites are down due to the federal shutdown, taking lots of data with them. Also, it's a HNews comment, which means I'm writing quickly about something I don't actually know much about. First: parent's comment mentioned the full range of crime, which it's useful to tease apart - violent crime (simple assault), serious violent crime (rape, robbery, aggravated assault), and property crime (car stereos). As a 20s-30s professional white guy in San Francisco, just about everyone I know has an anecdote or two about scary situations. I know people who have been threatened or worse at gunpoint (very recently!), at knifepoint, and at fistpoint (surely there's a word for that). But statistically, most physical violence my demographic experiences are anomalies. We might live and work and walk in high crime neighborhoods, but we're rarely targets. Even rape & sexual assault, in which 80% of victims know their attacker, is much more likely to victimize people with <$40k income (and the rate of violence increases the lower income gets). [1] Other kinds of violence are less likely than rape to victimize acquaintances (50% robbery, 60% aggravated assault), but most of violent crime victims still make less than $35k. It isn't evenly distributed. [2] Put simply, most violent crime occurs between people with lower incomes who know each other. None of this should be too surprising. Next, property crime. The rates of violent crime and property crime are highly correlated. However, property crime is more equal opportunity. Property crime is more likely to be committed by strangers and target across income groups. [4] So while I'm at relatively low risk of physical violence while walking down scary streets, parking a car or locking a bicycle is much higher risk. Now, all of this gets more complicated when we consider a large transient population like SF has, but the gist is that more transients leads to a higher rate of burglary, larceny, and robbery than would be expected of an equal population increase made up of other groups, but not necessarily a higher rate of violent crimes unrelated to taking property. [3] The clumping of violent crime by demographic stands. So, in a sense, I'm agreeing with you - scary neighborhoods do just become a 'part of the landscape'. But only for some of us. This 'landscape' and 'badge of honor' way of experiencing crime is a privilege to those who, relatively speaking, don't have much to worry about. For medium- and high-income individuals with limited or no social ties to other people in the neighborhood, living in a high crime locale is a minor economic problem (potential property loss) easily offset by low rent. There are a whole lot of other quality of life issues correlated with high crime for which I wouldn't judge anyone for wanting to move away from, but the mean streets aren't equally mean to everyone. [1] http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf http://www.johnbriere.com/jts%20csa_cpa%20paper.pdf [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8WlSG0kJ:www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_p2h8Wl... [3] http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.pdf http://glmw.info/research/files/Nicholas_McAndrew-article_1.... [4] http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/harries.pdf