Major Crime has dropped like 50% in the last 5-10 years. like so drastic whole prisons are being closed down in my state.

Quote :

"From 1991 to 2010, major crime rate, per capita, dropped 52%. This was not anticipated. Major crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, theft, auto theft and arson. This led, in turn, to fewer new convictions and imprisonments, leading to closure of facilities."

Why is it happening? This is just one article I've seen about this:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582041-rich-world-seeing-less-and-less-crime-even-face-high-unemployment-and-economic

I think it is because blacks can has the internets now and they don't learn about life only from their deadbeat parents. but i think if that were the cause the researchers would probably just say so.

10/1/2013 7:57:14 PM

must be the border fence.

10/1/2013 9:01:03 PM

blacks can has the internets now

10/1/2013 9:05:39 PM

candy crush

10/1/2013 9:07:55 PM

Thanks Obama!

10/2/2013 8:52:01 AM

But we need stricter gun laws to reduce crime

They can send some of the closed prison to Fayetteville since crime there is still awful and they don't have enough space for all the prisoners.

10/2/2013 8:54:23 AM

10/2/2013 9:00:08 AM

Quote :

"The sheer magnitude of the improvement in places such as New York and Los Angeles, where the incidence of some crimes has fallen by as much as 90%, cannot be explained just by a young-person deficit."

this is crazy to think about

10/2/2013 9:05:58 AM

in those places maybe theyre just finally afraid of the cops

10/2/2013 9:07:23 AM

Or vice versa.

10/2/2013 9:17:10 AM

NYC? Ha. Those fuckers underreport like hell.

10/2/2013 9:28:22 AM

Legalized abortion

10/2/2013 10:07:41 AM

the short list (not necessarily in order of importance)

1. ^improved access to abortion
2. Better Policing tactics/more funds for police/better targeting of crime
3. Banning lead in gas
4. end of the crack epidemic

10/2/2013 10:18:00 AM

Unleaded gasoline



[Edited on October 2, 2013 at 10:34 AM. Reason : just noticed ^ already pointed it out]

10/2/2013 10:33:20 AM

Quote :

"Quote : "The sheer magnitude of the improvement in places such as New York and Los Angeles, where the incidence of some crimes has fallen by as much as 90%, cannot be explained just by a young-person deficit." "

When you are the worst, it is easy to show improvement. NY is still on the list of dangerous cities.

10/2/2013 10:50:05 AM

Quote :

"NY is still on the list of dangerous cities."

What? New York City has a violent crime rate comparable to Charlotte.

10/2/2013 11:10:33 AM

^^what are you, stuck in the 70s/80s? NYC's crime rate has been fantastic for a while.

And yeah that connection between leaded gasoline and crime is ridiculous

10/2/2013 11:16:21 AM

Quote :

"the short list (not necessarily in order of importance) 1. ^improved access to abortion 2. Better Policing tactics/more funds for police/better targeting of crime 3. Banning lead in gas 4. end of the crack epidemic"

I, too, have read/seen Freakonomics. but yes, this is spot on. (they don't mention gas though)

10/2/2013 11:26:52 AM

regardless of the causes, this is a cool fact.

10/2/2013 11:30:20 AM

there was no crack epidemic

10/2/2013 11:38:04 AM

Apparently I am stuck in the 90s

Had Chicago and NYC mixed up. I blame that I had only been awake for about 5 minutes.

10/2/2013 11:49:18 AM

With today's technology, it's almost impossible not to get caught. Therefore it's not worth the risk of getting tossed in the big house for 20-30 years

[Edited on October 2, 2013 at 11:50 AM. Reason : .]

10/2/2013 11:50:30 AM

i don't think the threat of getting caught has ever been a big deterrent to lots of criminals.

10/2/2013 12:16:14 PM

Quote :

"What? New York City has a violent crime rate comparable to Charlotte."

I don't recall what impact underreporting/nonreporting had on the overall numbers, but using NYC as a comparison is not a very good one. NYPD is notorious for brushing serious/violent crimes under the rug to improve their compstat numbers.

10/2/2013 12:26:38 PM

That is true, but so do a lot of cities, and regardless, no one who lives in or is familiar at all with New York City today would consider it to be a "dangerous city."

10/2/2013 12:30:46 PM

WARNING Thewolfweb is not an open forum. I was banned for MONTHS with no explanation and accused of being a troll after ten years of trouble free TWW membership. Then, when I was finally able to log in to my TWW account, I was threatened by the user synapse with further bans if I even go into certain threads.

I have created a Feedback Forum thread about it. So far I have gotten zero feedback. Lets demand that TWW adhere to some basic standards of administrative conduct.

10/3/2013 2:17:58 PM

I just wanted to come in here and beat the drum on lead some more:


people credit the reduction in lead levels to varying degrees for the reduction in crime rates. I've seen people report from 30% all the way up to 90%, obviously its not an easy thing to pin down, but most researchers at least believe it to be a pretty significant factor in crime rates.

We had good evidence that lead could severely fuck up people's brains and cognitive ability way back in the late 20s and 30s. It didn't get banned until the 70s when the evidence was just so deep and irrefutable (and catalytic convertors were starting to get put on cars).

But guess what, Industry, car manufacturers and oil companies, told us they couldn't do it. It was going to be too onerous and expensive. Our gas mileage was going to suffer, our valves were going to only last a few years, etc.

Of course they couldn't have been more wrong, and now we have the added benefit of a dropping crime rate, which is hard to put a price on, but I'm sure most would agree we are much better off due to the ban.

This story has repeated for almost every environmental regulation since then, and in almost every case we've ended up better off down the road.

10/3/2013 2:25:26 PM

crime is WAY down and not responsible scientist can explain why.

I'd like to call attention to the fact that the guy that brought this to your attention was MOTHERFUCKING BANNED from TWW with not notice and then threatened with further bans by the user synapse if i even went into certain threads. This shit needs to stop or TWW's relevance to the universe will continue to evaporate. Do your part: speak up.

10/3/2013 2:33:17 PM

So banned that you're still here

10/3/2013 3:01:31 PM

i just happen to be here for the moment. there is no set of rules for bans here that i know of. it just basically a very ghetto form of founders fatigue. anybody worth a fuck involved in TWW split in the first couple years and now were left with some year2000 clock punching, father of 2.4 trash for admins.

10/3/2013 3:07:19 PM

well that economist 3-way graph moves away from homicide from 97 till now for the same reason we have all these gimpy vets working at the DMV.

10/3/2013 3:30:23 PM

Quote :

"Legalized abortion"

ha, thanks freakanomics

10/3/2013 7:59:58 PM

ya know it's certainly not down everywhere

in several large US cities, including the one I live, crime has spiked recently.

10/3/2013 8:26:19 PM

Perhaps leaded gas is still allowed in Chicago

scratch that

http://www.uchicago.edu/community/safety/reports/historical/

10/3/2013 8:29:34 PM

Maybe because we already have so many people locked up?

10/3/2013 9:18:20 PM

10/3/2013 9:26:32 PM