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Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

economist.com

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Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#41

Post by EGreg »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #21
EGreg wrote: post #15

There is a simple reason: computers and the internet. It makes people more docile and satisfies their urges. Porn for sexual urges, social media for "socializing", google and wikipedia for knowledge etc. That last part also makes everyone more educated. Which also correlates to less (blue collar) crime.

Simple and likely wrong. Violent crime started falling in the early 1990s, before the internet had much of any penetration outside academia.

You're talking about only the USA. Actually, violent crime spiked in late 80s and then was coming down from that spike in the 90s, so there's that confounding factor. Most of the crime in the late 80s was juvenile crime in fact. It might have had to do with the culture of the time (inner city gangs, etc.)

A better way would be to compare what people focus on / use on a daily basis today vs in the 80s. If you are restless today you can pacify yourself with a mobile phone. In fact it's an addiction that gives you a boost of dopamine. And the virtual world is much less .... physical and violent, which reduces people's tendencies over time.

Another great pacifier of the 20th century is consumerism. Feel bad? Buy an ikea, veg out in front of the TV. There is a great documentary about how the PR industry was invented and Freud's theories about the "collective ego"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_rIdd69W8

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#42

Post by toomuchtodo »

thejteam wrote: post #13
drcode wrote: post #7

I think the reasons for this are: (1) People buy fewer used items in physical stores, i.e. fewer people buy stuff at pawn shops etc and a typical thief will never go through the effort of building up a decent eBay seller reputation. This makes it harder to monetize stolen property. (2) It's a self-perpetuating statistic, in that less crime means more resources/attention is given to the remaining crime (by the police…

And, expanding on this, people carry less cash both on their person and in their homes.

Very much this. I sold my motorcycle yesterday for ~$7K cash. Immediately afterwards I went to the ATM to deposit it.

Who still keeps items of large value at home?

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#43

Post by marknutter »

thejteam wrote: post #13
drcode wrote: post #7

I think the reasons for this are: (1) People buy fewer used items in physical stores, i.e. fewer people buy stuff at pawn shops etc and a typical thief will never go through the effort of building up a decent eBay seller reputation. This makes it harder to monetize stolen property. (2) It's a self-perpetuating statistic, in that less crime means more resources/attention is given to the remaining crime (by the police…

And, expanding on this, people carry less cash both on their person and in their homes.

Yeah, but they carry $500 smartphones with them now instead.

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#44

Post by marknutter »

DanI-S wrote: post #36

There's no mention of the rise of the welfare state. I'd be surprised if the presence of an economic safety net didn't have an impact on people's willingness to commit crime. In the end, I'm sure the answer is a combination of all these factors. As individuals and as a species, we get better at living as time goes on.

If it's true that welfare makes it less likely for someone to commit a crime then wouldn't that also mean it makes them less likely to get a job?

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#46

Post by mrpizzadelivery »

rwhitman wrote: post #28

I don't think enough emphasis is put in these studies on the rise of cheap entertainment for bored male youth. Teenage boys that normally would have been running around in the streets committing entry level crimes are now glued to their Xbox. The declines in crime also happen to correlate with the ubiquitousness and availability of video games. As they get cheaper and more violent, crime goes down. Sure policing has…

+1 to this! Also consider the endless entertainment available via the internet. Today for about $50 per month I have access to a plethora of streaming movies and television shows via Netflix, practically unlimited news to read, and many more forms of entertainment at my finger tips. Just 20 years ago I might have paid $4 per move rental at the video store. I'm honestly wondering if the fall in crime is due to the rise of the super couch potato lifestyle similar to that portrayed in the movie Idiocracy.

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#47

Post by pitt1980 »

xradionut wrote: post #37

Here's another factor to consider: Sometimes crime is under reported or covered up or not acted on. I've known of property and other crimes that did not show up in the statistics/annual reports of a particular city. The city in question was/is known for low crime and used that as a selling up point to attract businesses and home buyers. I'd be surprised if this was the only municipality that "fudged" their numbers.

it seems that those trend are too dramatic to simply be a case of fudged numbers with no underlying change on the ground

(not that numbers can't be fudged, just that if you were fudging numbers you wouldn't fudge them that much)

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#48

Post by jrwoodruff »

pitt1980 wrote: post #45
moron4hire wrote: post #2

I think historians will look back at the early 21st century and note that Soma was best served digitally, rather than chemically.

what does this mean? what is Soma?

Reference to 'Brave New World.' From Wikipedia:

...Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "holidays". It was developed by the World State to provide these inner-directed personal experiences within a socially managed context of State-run 'religious' organizations; social clubs.

Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?

#50

Post by throwaway1979 »

pitt1980 wrote: post #45
moron4hire wrote: post #2

I think historians will look back at the early 21st century and note that Soma was best served digitally, rather than chemically.

what does this mean? what is Soma?

A fictional drug used to keep the masses in check. It is from the classic "Brave New World". His comment is quite cute in that regards :)

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

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