The mystery of the decline in crime
Why did crime fall precipitously in the 1990s? No one knows, but there’s no lack of theories.
The one highlighted in that linked article seems incorrect to me. Increasing cell phone use wasn’t really that much of a factor until later, as best I can recall. My leading theory, for what it’s worth, is that the increasing ubiquity of security cameras has deterred some crime.
As for why certain cities have such high crime rates and others with similar demographics don’t, that’s mysterious too but may have something to do with the way policing is done in each city.
And then there’s this intriguing point:
While most of the researchers above have focused narrowly on the 1990s crime decline, Tcherni-Buzzeo has a different temporal perspective. In her review paper, she showed a broader pattern of centuries of declining human violence. From that view, all the ways the entire world has changed can be summed to more peace, and the real aberration was the spike in crime from the 1960s through the 1980s.
This fits quite well with Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why violence has declined, which I wrote about in this previous post.
If I were to guess, I’d say it was strongly related to the percentage of the population who were the first-born children of first-born children; or, who were the first-born male or first-born female of their parents, who were (one or both parents) first-born males or first-born females of their parents.
Not sure if that precise relationship has been studied before.
But in my experience, the first-borns tend to be extraordinarily conscientious. It appears I’m not alone in observing this:
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/04/535470953/research-shows-birth-order-really-does-matter
I’m sure there are other reasons, also.
I can’t stop thinking about your mouse problem. Mostly because the other day I was staring into the eyes of a mouse. And I’m looking at him. And he is looking at me. And I kill him.
Now I have a possum problem.
Perhaps, as well, some of this apparent decline could have to do with, 1.–how crime is reported, categorized, and measured, 2.–how reluctant or not people are to report crimes of which they were the victims, 3.–and most unlikely, reluctance to report a crime because it will raise your, or your business’s insurance rate.
Of mice and men.
I didn’t mean the pun. But when I was looking at the mouse I realized that every hand is set against that creature. And if I could I would let him stay. But I can’t.
My guess is that we moved from a “Gee officer Krupke, ya gotta understand” social environment to a “Three strikes and you’re out” environment. Left wingers just couldn’t understand that when a hard core recidivist violent criminal is given life without parole, crime in the community goes down a lot. Prison shankings may go up as well as incarceration costs.
And like Neo mentions, the way policing is done is of enormous importance. Read the story of Bill Bratton and the Boston shooting and murder crime wave. Bratton and his people discovered that there were only a couple (few?) dozen criminals wrecking havoc, but revolving door justice put them back on the street. When they utilized the federal justice system and delivered life sentences, not only were the incarcerated taken off the streets, but those left on the street knew that there was going to be zero tolerance for heinous crimes.
In Chicago there are many criminals who are being arrested now, who are on probation when arrested. (A lady was arrested setting a wild fire in the LA area a few days ago who was out on probation for a previous arson conviction.) But Chicago is broke, and it costs the city $31K/year to incarcerate, so the door revolves because it’s cheaper. False economy.
All the theories are interesting and none strike me as nonsense. The LA arsonist lady was caught because a concerned citizen was monitoring and tracking her to her second wild fire setting, while on the phone with 911. Proving which theories are the most significant is tough.
sad to say.
How much do you want to bet I will keep your promise; Swear to god.
Required fields are marked.
Required fields are marked.
Legalized abortion a generation earlier?
https://medium.com/s/freakonomicsradio/abortion-and-crime-revisited-c33c70e2b447
Levitt and Donohue (2001) is canceled, right?
Darn accidental coding error.
Big old, conspicuous, eugenic component, anyways.
Oh we’ll catch up real soon now.
Do not ignore two very powerful reducers of crime: “mail-in” and “online” reporting. Well, not really crime reducers, but reducers of reported crime, which is important to local politicians when seeking re-election. With telephone reporting at least the reporting party is talking directly to a police officer or other properly trained person, so necessary information finds its way into the report.
The most consistently reported crimes are murder and auto theft. Dead bodies are hard to ignore and no one heads out in the morning to work and seeing their car gone says “Oh well….” and calls Uber. Commercial robbery might slip in here, too. When people get used to understaffed police agencies not being able to pursue burglaries or thefts, or like California, reduce the penalties for them to almost nothing, no one bothers to make the reports.
The FBI collects crime statistics nationwide, but they don’t, I believe, have an FBI employee in each one of these reporting locations.
They have to rely on State and local agencies for their information.
What says that these reporting locations are sending in the correct information, and have not “prettied up” the picture by reducing the number and severity of the crime they report.
Thus Mayor or Police chief X calls up and tells his people, “can’t have that many murders reported, we’ll look bad and the tourists will stop commin’.”
“Work on those numbers, cut ’em down.”
Saw a theory once that the crime wave of the 60s and 70s was caused by lead poisoning derived from leaded gasoline. It caused poor impulse control in those who imbibed it as children, or some such. When leaded gas went away, so did the crime wave. The author claimed that the same changes could be found in other countries who eliminated leaded gas at different times, and it seems to be consistent. Exit question – can we blame lead for hippies and disco, too?
If I were forced to come up with a single overarching reason for the decline in violent crime over time it would have to be affluence. But affluence is probably too abstract an explanation since it encompasses many different factors. It’s self evident that people have less of a reason to become violent when they’re well fed and generally feel secure.
More speicifically, people have far more distractions in their lives, far more sources of entertainment and preoccupation than at any other point in human history. The principal sources of violence, young men, have many more outlets to release pent up violent impulses in safely controlled ways (like violent video games and the like) in our modern age than at any other time. And access and avialability of pornagraphy is basically infinite.
The mid-60s to the early ’80s comprised our last great bear market. Social conventions, attitudes and behavior deteriorate in those periods. The 36 years from 1982 until last year not only saw the creation of much greater affluence, as Nonapod comments above, but also the social reinforcement that bull markets empower, of optimism and inclusion. (Thus, also, the free-everything political campaigns of today, which could only be made possible by a massive creation of new wealth.)
I don’t think there’s a mystery, it’s just that most sociologists who write about crime are emotionally-invested in notions inconsistent with what happened. That also applies to economists who play at being sociologists.
Look at New York, in which an 82% decline in the homicide rate has been observed since 1990 v. a 50% decline nationally. Now compare to Baltimore Baltimore and New York had nearly identical homicide rates in 1980. By 2010, Baltimore’s exceeded New York’s by a factor of 7. In recent years, it’s been by a factor of 12. The difference: amply staffed police forces with a clear institutional mission using best practices v. understaffed police and an institutional mission crucially influenced by avoiding incidents which would cause you to be used as a sacrificial lamb by politicians.
If I were forced to come up with a single overarching reason for the decline in violent crime over time it would have to be affluence.
Per capita income in real terms increased four-fold between 1929 and 1980. The homicide rates in this country were almost precisely the same at the beginning and end of this period.
Saw a theory once that the crime wave of the 60s and 70s was caused by lead poisoning derived from leaded gasoline.
It wasn’t a theory, it was a hypothesis promoted by a journalist named Kevin Drum. He made zero effort to assemble ecological data which would show an effect of lead exposure which survived controls. He just made use of longitudinal descriptive statistics.
In the UK, with its ever-present video cams, the bobbies sit on their butts “monitoring”, but are not on the streets. And previous crimes have been de-crimed, so the crime rate has decreased!. Some two hundred different crimes 25 years ago are no longer crimes today. The Brit household is burgled on average once a year, so “simple’ burglary is effectively no longer a crime… too much for the bobbies to do, otherwise.
Coming soon to a city near you is the same approach!
Too many blacks serving time for felonies! Disproportionate! See de Blasio!
The mid-60s to the early ’80s comprised our last great bear market.
Injurious to people invested in equities, but those aren’t the people mugging you downtown. Growth rates in real income per capita were higher at that time than they have been in the last 20 years.
What says that these reporting locations are sending in the correct information, and have not “prettied up” the picture by reducing the number and severity of the crime they report.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics makes use of public survey research to assess the frequency of crime. It doesn’t conflict with FBI data.
There’s been a seven-fold increase in the prison population since 1980, but I don’t see anyone suggesting that replacing social work with punishment and incapacitating criminals might have had some effect. This is a very peculiar thread.
Do not ignore two very powerful reducers of crime:
How is this powerful, outside your imagination?
I used to enjoy reading James Taranto’s column, but he stopped writing or went behind a paywall or something, so I stopped running into links to him in WSJ.
“The Butterfield Effect” is a term coined by James Taranto in his online editorial column of the Wall Street Journal called Best of the Web Today, typically bringing up a headline, “Fox Butterfield, Is That You?” later “Fox Butterfield, Call Your Office.
Taranto coined the term after reading Butterfield’s articles discussing the “paradox” of crime rates falling while the prison population grew due to tougher sentencing guidelines. Butterfield quoted F.B.I. statistics that from 1994 to 2003 there was a 16 percent drop in arrests for violent crime, including a 36 percent decrease in arrests for murder and a 25 percent decrease in arrests for robbery, but the tough new sentencing laws led to a growth in inmates being sent to prison. Taranto and a Jewish World Review columnist felt that Butterfield should have considered that the tougher sentencing guidelines might have reduced crime by causing more criminals to be in jail.
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Butterfield
Injurious to people invested in equities, but those aren’t the people mugging you downtown.
Non sequitur.
Growth rates in real income per capita were higher at that time than they have been in the last 20 years.
Irrelevant.
It seems unnecessary to post such idiotic thoughts. Improve yourself.
Does anyone have a quarrel with the notion that a very small percentage of criminals–say, around 5%-10%–are responsible for a large percentage, say, 50%-60% or more–of crimes? I’ve also seen it said that, for every crime such repeat offenders are arrested and charged for, they’ve probably committed dozens–perhaps many dozens–of other crimes, many of them low level, that they have never been identified as having committed.
If this is the case, it would seem like identifying those “career criminals,” concentrating on arresting and prosecuting them, and putting them behind bars for long prison terms would result in a drastic decrease in the crime rate.
It seems unnecessary to post such idiotic thoughts. Improve yourself.
It’s your thesis, and it’s inconsistent with readily available descriptive statistics. Stamping your feet and saying ‘you’re stupid’ to me doesn’t salvage the thesis. (The explosion in crime antedated the bear market, by the way).
Kai Akker:
You can disagree with another commenter and post facts that refute what that person says. Best to stick to argument and skip the invective.
Art…thanks for your research here…
I was wondering about that increase in the number of folks behind bars as well as the increase in the number of privately owned firearms & the widening acceptance of open carry. If crime rates are on a downward trend, those are two things might have something to do with it.
Repeat offenders moved off the streets don’t re-offend, and an armed populace makes criminal behaviour a riskier proposition. Just a thought.
Snow on Pine on October 30, 2019 at 4:04 pm said:
…
If this is the case, it would seem like identifying those “career criminals,” concentrating on arresting and prosecuting them, and putting them behind bars for long prison terms would result in a drastic decrease in the crime rate.
* * *
Life gives us an observable experiment — if Trump follows through & the Congress gets its act together and helps. (hah)
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2019/10/29/trump-vows-concrete-steps-violent-crime/
How bout a little post-hoc?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/356783/
You can disagree with another commenter and post facts that refute what that person says. Best to stick to argument and skip the invective. [Neo]
I was studying the other commenter’s technique.
I was studying the other commenter’s technique.
If you had been doing that, we’d have seen some reference to data.
There is no data to respond to your misunderstandings. I suggest you read and think before you conclude your first impressions and factoids relate to a post’s meaning. It happens all over these threads. Invective omitted, unfortunately.
There is no data to respond to your misunderstandings
I understood your point just fine. The trouble is, it is inconsistent with what was actually going on in the economy and the society at the time. You’ve had four clear opportunities to demonstrate that what was going on was consistent with your thesis. You keep failing to do that. Can’t imagine why.
Your posts showed you had no understanding of mine. The absurdity of arguing disappointed stockholders were not committing muggings was a non sequitur and betrayed your lack of understanding. Then confusing the category of income with that of wealth was another error.
Another one of your posts claimed the whole thread of replies had missed your point of enforcement and punishment, but several posters including Tommyjay had gone into that hours earlier.
You often top your errors off by condescending to the other posters to whom you reply. You need to improve yourself. Your posts have some information value at times, but mostly I find having to answer your posts a tremendous time-waster — like right now.
“Art Deco
I read Drum’s piece on lead exposure. It wasn’t about crime per se. It was about deficient impulse control.
Two examples from Flint, MI.
A friend had an insurance agency in the downtown area. A black guy came in with a friend to get auto insurance. THis means he owned a car legally. He knew he was supposed to get insurnace. He could anticipate being able to pay the premiums.In other words, he was plugged into the normal way of doing things. Not on the outer edge of society.
Another client came in and paid a sizable premium in cash. Leaving the insurnace application, drivers license, and registration on the desk, the two guys grabbed the cash and headed fof the door. The office was a repurposed house, which meant the door opened inward. While trying to get untangled, they were Maced to their knees by the dimunitive receptionist.
A couple of guys in a black neighborhood wanted the red convertible a young lady had. So they killed her. And drove the car around the neighborhood.
Drum wasn’t talking about all crime, but stupid, impulsive crime. When you ask, “What the hell were they thinking?” kind of crime. They weren’t thinking. Drum made the case that it’s politically impossible to talk about a population which possesses a disproportionate number of people who are likely to just “go off”.
Brookings had a good piece on the subject.
Drum wasn’t talking about all crime, but stupid, impulsive crime.
So what? He’d still have to assemble an ecological study. That he didn’t do, because it’s not in his skill set.
Your posts showed you had no understanding of mine.
It doesn’t matter how often you strike this pose, it doesn’t provide evidence of your thesis or refute arguments against it.
You often top your errors off by condescending to the other posters t
My suggestion to you is that you stick to the issues.
It doesn’t matter how often you strike this pose, it doesn’t provide evidence of your thesis or refute arguments against it.
That very post supplied three examples of your errors. You need to improve your reading comprehension.
“You often top your errors off by condescending to the other posters t”
My suggestion to you is that you stick to the issues.
And my suggestion to you is that you work on your reading comprehension, improve your ratiocination, and then perhaps you will have some motivation other than misguided vanity to aid your discussion. Those are the issues when you post. IMO.
That very post supplied three examples of your errors. You need to improve your reading comprehension.
It did nothing of the kind. Your problem is making assertions you cannot support, then pretending others did not understand your assertions.
There have been studies which indicate that the average felon commits about 12 offenses (not necessarily all felonies) for everyone he is caught for. Considering that many career criminals are arrested over and over again, this indicates an extraordinary amount of crime committed by a relatively few people. This was confirmed to me when I was in law school — back in the late Bronze Age — and worked on a project to computerize and link all the justice agencies — police, courts, DA, probation, prisons, etc. The dean of my law school, who I was working for, was in charge of the privacy aspects of the system, He decided that there were insufficient privacy protections on the initial data gathering, so all the data thus far collected had to be wiped. When I went to give the project manager the good news, he seemed utterly unfazed. When I asked him why, he said “Nothing to worry about. Two-thirds of them will be back on the system in six months.”
Generally speaking, when the cops arrest someone for a crime, they consider the case “solved” when, by their standards, there is sufficient evidence to prove he did it. Whether the DA is able to convict him is not relevant to the cops. The police know most of the bad guys, so when they go to arrest somebody, it will likely be a known criminal. If the DA fails to convict, the attitude of the cops is, “Well, if he didn’t do that one, he did something else we didn’t catch him for.” When you read about these exoneration cases, while the “unjustly accused” may not have done the particular crime for which he was charged, he almost surely did something else equally bad, as in the case of the Central Park Five. They may not have committed the specific rape of the Jogger, but they were running around Central Park terrorizing people, committing vandalism, and sexually assaulting women (shy of rape).
Generally speaking, when the cops arrest someone for a crime, they consider the case “solved” when, by their standards, there is sufficient evidence to prove he did it.
That’s not salient for constructing data on crime rates. It might be salient for clearance data, but I tend to doubt the reported clearance rates are calculated that way.