It Really Doesn’t Make Sense to Blame Crime on Poverty

A really terrific article from Jason Riley in the WSJ this week (sorry, paywall):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-doe...ail-reform-shoplifting-public-safety-61209f0b

While I’m not among those who consider poverty and crime to be completely independent variables, the article makes a compelling case against those who claim, in so many words, that we can do nothing about crime until we solve poverty.

Relevant observations from the article include:

• On a per capita basis, Americans were far poorer in the 30s than the 60s, yet the 30s had a much lower crime rate.
• Average black income was far higher in the 90s than the 60s, and with the 90s having a far richer social safety net for those who remained poor, yet the black homicide rate was more than 200% higher in the 90s.
• In NYC, from 1990 through 2018 the murder rate declined almost 90% yet the poverty rate increased slightly over that time.

The working premise some draw from this data is the following: poverty isn’t turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. What coincides with the relative comparisons above are the times when government’s commitment to law enforcement waxed or wained, and thus the increases in crime noted above are more likely from a core criminal class seizing opportunities when it is less likely for them to be caught after committing a crime.

I do agree with this article’s central premise: it’s not just about poverty. It’s also about effective law enforcement.

 

The bedrock of society is its laws and the bedrock of laws is its ability to enforce them.

liberals wish to undermine society by attacking and turning the public against police in the false and ludicrous claim that police brutality causes crime and therefore if we defund and neutralize the police, the oppressed criminals will have no reason to be criminals.

except that is and will always be a lie. Sadly, the stupidity of Democrat voters requires reality to, literally, be shoved up their butts by criminals with huge rap(e) sheets.

They are only now starting to grow the brains enough to recall their idiot DAs and mayors, but far too stupid still to connect the dots back to their corrupt Party.

 

It is invariably the crime that causes areas to sink into poverty. It drives away the businesses to employ people, I worked for three years on the south side of Chicago in the heart of the black districts known as the ghetto. Company employed up to 100 people in manufacturing. I left it in 1979 and they closed that facility a few years later because of all the break ins and property damage. Move out to the suburbs and all those jobs went with it.

All this effort by the left to bring businesses back in while at the same time taking measures that will only INCREASE crime are totally self defeating. Get rid of the crime and THEN maybe you can start rebuilding an economic base.

 

Couldn’t agree more, ant that point is also emphasized in the WSJ article from the OP.

 

I would posit it’s not poverty or law enforcement. It’s a change in the values and morals of humans. There has been a change in the value we put on human life as well as on personal property.

There can be no help from law or enforcement of law. Only a change in the respect for others and their property will have lasting meaningful effect.

People during the Great Depression had a completely different set of morals and values than we see today.

 

The consequences from the pull back in urban policing in the wake of the Floyd killing would certainly seem to refute your point. American “values” were no different in the summer of 2020 than at the start of that year, though our violent crime rate certainly changed.

 

Welcome to the world of intersectionality. Lots of dynamics at play.

 

Did people have a completely different set of morals or is it that they didn't have a Family Dollar they could swipe from 100 years ago?

 

Poverty and Violent Crime Don’t Go Hand in Hand

As for group behavior, cultural factors help explain differences in violent-crime levels. African-Americans, for example, have had high violent-crime rates from the late nineteenth century to the present. These patterns derive from their Southern background, where whites had higher rates of violence than whites in other regions. Early Irish and Italian immigrants also had high crime rates until, having moved into the middle class, they found that such violence became patently self-destructive. Thus, a group’s history and experience, not biological determinants such as skin color or race, drive violent behaviors.

As we saw with Irish and Italian immigration to the United States—and will someday see with America’s black and Latino populations—movement up the social ladder to the middle class is associated with sharp declines in violent crime. The reasons for this are easily appreciated. The middle-class person has everything to lose, and little to gain, from interpersonal violence: personal injury, loss of status, and criminal justice sanctions. Plus, the civil legal system provides effective alternatives for dispute resolution that middle-class individuals can afford.
https://www.city-journal.org/poverty-and-violent-crime-dont-go-hand-in-hand

Maybe not hand in hand, but those with more to lose, will usually commit less crimes that could cost them their possessions.

 

Oh agree with that also. I have brought up in discussions with friends on several occasions that what do these looters do when they show off the big screen they looted, do the brag to their friends watching the game on it how they stole and isn't it GREAT?? I would never steal and if I did and showed it off to my friends as such they wouldn't be friends any longer.

 

I think it comes from their African background, whites in the South were no different from elsewhere when it came to law and justice and the middle class. Look at Africa now and other predominately black countries. And it has gotten WORSE here amongst black society not better and it is because of internal behaviors and moral and ethical beliefs.

 

Since the Civil Rights era it has changed from an equal opportunity to a you are where you are in life because of someone else so if that someone else has something you want then you have a right to take it mentality. That since you were oppressed you can engage in anti-social criminal behavior as a right.

 

Yes I read it with my morning coffee

 

Yes temporary effects. That’s why I specifically mentioned lasting meaningful effects. Policing has increased since that temporary decrease and crime rates did not fall accordingly.

Also, crime rates rose comparably in places that saw no change in policing due to riots.

Over time, “policing” a population that has no respect for others just feeds the prison population. I don’t think that’s helpful long term.

 

The commitment to law enforcement has waned because of the constant influx of videos showing how they are treating the people that pay them to protect our communities.

The SCOTUS has even ruled they have no requirement to either protect or to serve.

The largest issue, at least for me, isn’t what individual members of the police do — it’s how they shift as a single entity, ignoring bad behavior and often protecting it. If an officer stepped out of line and was immediately arrested by another officer, removed from their position and charged appropriately and expeditiously then this trust breakdown wouldn’t be occurring.

Police were once believed to be the most reliable witness statement in any interaction with a civilian and body cams and general surveillance are showing that isn’t necessarily true.

Pay them more, train them better, prosecute the bad one, disband police unions and implement policies that pull from the agency (or their insurance) rather than the taxpayers to fund lawsuits and settlements.

 

Here is a link to the article that isn't paywalled.

https://archive.is/mumHX#selection-301.18-337.453

They quote NY Mayor Adams extensively, and this is the Mayor at his very best.



'Mr. Adams argued that soft-on-crime policies hit poor communities the hardest, not only in terms of public safety but also economically. “When you do a real analysis in our pursuit of making sure people who commit crimes are receiving the justice they deserve, we can’t forget the people who are the victims of crimes,” he said.'

And that's the key, the VICTIMS are trapped in poverty, and likely as a group, completely law abiding, being preyed on by a criminal class that operates enough in the open, that I suspect that city officials are on the take.

Our Federal Prosecutors and FBI should be putting together RICO cases, but, they are too busy chasing Trump, School Board Parents, and Political Opponents.

'The mayor also pushed back at the common argument made by social-justice advocates that arresting and prosecuting lawbreakers is tantamount to “criminalizing” poverty. “People who state that we’re criminalizing the poor,” he said, are wrong. Moreover, crime is costing the city jobs and businesses. New Yorkers are “unemployed because we’re losing those businesses in our city. We can’t allow repeated offenders to make a mockery of the criminal justice system.”'

Agreed. The Mayor Continues:

'The belief that poverty is the root cause of crime may be popular, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For starters, most poor people aren’t criminals. In a previous era, when Americans were significantly poorer than they are today, crime rates were significantly lower. Crime during the Great Depression was lower than during the 1960s, a decade of tremendous economic growth and prosperity. In 1960 the black male homicide rate was 45 per 100,000. By 1990 it had climbed by more than 200% to 140 per 100,000, even though black average incomes by then were much higher, and the black poverty rate much lower, than 30 years earlier.'

That's higher than the death rates among US Service Persons, during the Iraq Surge, when they were fighting door to door in Fallujah. Note that stat is "Black Males", change ot to Military Aged Males, and it surges well above that.

'local bodegas are trying to combat the rise in customers looking for five-finger discounts. It featured footage of laundry detergent and other items that had to be kept behind the counter or chained to shelves in the aisles to deter thieves. The piece perfectly illustrated the concerns of Mr. Adams, a former police officer who understands that crime victims shouldn’t be an afterthought.'

This was the Mayor Adams that I was excited about, but, it hasn't seemed to me like this is how he is governing, which has been somewhat of a disappointment.

Rudy showed what worked. I was hoping that we were on our way back to "A Safe New York."

 

Sorry, no, the High Priests of Intersectionality have the “Effective Law Enforcement” circle alone and off to the side when they draw their Venn diagrams. Though occasionally they’ll draw it only overlapping with “Racism.”

 

Unfortunately you, like too many others, are being swayed by media-hyped, anecdotal evidence. I’d wager more black men will be killed this weekend in the South Side of Chicago than have been unjustly killed by police nationally over the last 10 years.

When it comes to black lives, the police aren’t the problem. Gun homicide is.

 

What’s wrong with feeding the prison population with those who harm others?

 

One would think that Christians would not get worse but better. In terms of moral and ethic beliefs.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religio.../christians/by/racial-and-ethnic-composition/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religio.../christians/by/racial-and-ethnic-composition/

 

Except that crime has always existed.

Violent crime rates rose during the Depression (in 1933, nationwide homicide mortality rate hit a high for the century until that point, at 9.7 per 100,000 people)
You also realize organized crime had started a few years prior to the Depression. So much for those great morals and values.

 

Retail establishments were quite common 100 years ago. I’m pretty certain there were no Family Dollars though. Could have been some Dollar Generals. LOL

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212267

Tracking morality addressed in literature the trends fit the trending of crime rates rising from the early 1900’s to peaks in the 1990’s. Then a resurgence of morality in literature in the 1980’s correlates with the next generation’s experiencing great declines in crime rates until recently.

Proof? No. Evidence? Yes. Better evidence than retail establishments having different names today than in the past.

 

I would much rather the poor schmuck in prison had never wanted to commit a crime and was on the outside living a happy productive life.

 

Sure, and by 1940 the crime rate was 6.4/100,000. Turns out laws prohibiting alcohol had the opposite effect as intended and when those laws were reversed the crime they caused plummeted.

See post #22 for information on crime rates and correlation with morality in literature over time.

 

I am speaking of in general terms, as a society.
Feel free to ignore it however