bear with me here, this is a baby seedling of a thought:

the murder rate in boston has been increasing every year for a number of years...i cannot find the stats without subscribing to some website, but i did find the stats for the years 1980-2000.

the highest murder count was in 1990 at 143. then the number steadily decreases (with one burp at 1993) until we get to 31 murders in 1999. also, the number steadily increases from 1980 (92) to 1990.

now, the murder rate has been climbing again...in 2006 so far 25 fatal shootings, with 189 non-fatal shootings.

the common bonds between 1990 and 2006 are war and a republican presidency.

i am not concluding, merely thinking, that perhaps the gov't sanctioned violence, aka war, is sending a message to our populace: violence is the way to get conflicts resolved.

now, i'd like to believe that people are not so stupid as to respond a war state in this fashion, but i cannot get it out of my head that there really might be a connenction.

or have there been that many cuts in police and crime reduction programs under the republican presidency that allows violent criminals the wiggle room to do their thing?

i invite you all to poke holes in my theory because i really don't like my theory at all.

Many pinkos here would say that crime is a result of economic inequality. This inequality happens most frequently during recessions. Like say the one in the late 80's through '91 or the recession that appears to be starting now. So it would make sense, following this idea, that violent crime rates would be highest then.

I do not discount your theory about war and crime. I find it similar to argument about the death penalty. Either you are ok with killing people or you are not. So if the government says; "we are being threatened, we have the right to prevent then from potentially hurting us in teh future. we are allowed to act violently," I can understand how that mentality could filter down to us in the serf class.

I don't think that the crime has to do with economics, but with ignorance. Purposeful, glorified ignorance. When it becomes a cultural standard to shun education, splurge the little money you have on over-price designer clothes and tacky jewlery, and create a hostile front against the police (until, of course, it's YOU that you want them to protect), then there's little hope of anyone else getting through.
It's not a situation you can throw money at to fix. They've got to fix themselves, or face killing themselves off.

I think in most cases local murder rates have little to nothing to do with federal government. I tend to believe that local law enforcement has a little more to do with it, but that's just me.

It's not all their fault.

Interesting thoughts.
If you look at nationwide crime rates, you'll see that virtually every type of crime has seen a steady decrease since 1990.
(and check out the bad numbers during the Carter presidency).

I think your point may have some merit, as may Broken Iris'. The latter is something I've thought may be true for some time.

i had not thought of the recession angle.

okay, so is this potential recession a result of the money being spent on the war? and if so, can we point at the cold war as the cause of the recession in the 80's?

or are recessions cyclical and unavoidable?

also, if we are looking at economic inequity as the root problem, we also must take into account the cuts made in law enforcement and education. less police means getting away with crime is easier. overcrowded schools and cuts in afterschool/boys-girls clubs means more kids on the street that can learn that crime is the easy way.

working hard and getting into college with grants and loans seems an impossible task. joining the army to help pay for college is not a very attractive option for those who have a habit of breathing.

and if the president of the united states takes the public stance:

"if you're not with us, you're against us"

how does that not filter down into the lives of those inner city kids who only see the odds stacked against them?

I'm guessing intercity crime rates were at their highest peak during the "crack" days of the 80's.

Depressions tend to cause wars, but be caused by them. Dpression are often caused by market shocks. Wikipedia suggests oil price shocks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

My business profs would teach that recessions are cyclical and unavoidable. I tend to think that once energy supply issues are sorted out (we switch to solar), then macroeconomic policy may be able to avoid them.




This is sort half NaT's idea and half mine. During depressions, state level tax receipts are drastically smaller, so they have to cut services. Combine this with NaT's point about victimhood/pro-crime culture and you have a pretty potent reciepe for violent crime.

The problem is when you continually increasing funding and expend services, and remember it's not just magic money from a pot at the end of the rainbow, you eliminate the motivation for the private sector to provide for that group. Thus that group becomes progressively more dependant on the government and less likely to adopt behaviors taht would deter them from crime.



Joining the army worked well for my family, and their sacrifices made so that I didnt have to. I just had to work through college.

The cultural identity of 'victimhood' cannot be overcome by any amount of money or poltical bs'ing. If inner city kids, and I was not one of them, precieve themselves as trapped victims we cannot help them. That's a change that they will need to make for themselves, starting with their leaders and idols.

this idea of "victimhood" is compelling, and it makes a sort of sense...a friend of mine owns section 8 housig, and he tells me about the able bodied men and women who sit on their welfare checks and do nothing to help themselves all the while blaming "the man" for keeping them down.

but where does this idea come from? i sense that it is being passed down from generation to generation. so while throwing money at a problem does not always look like the best of ideas, investing money in our public schools to increase the number of qualified teachers, to decresase classroom size, to bring in effective educational materials, may be one way to break this chain of victimhood.

It struck me as a child of public schooling that the biggest challenge facing education is not the quality of teachers or materials, but the general apathy if not outright resistance to education that many youngins have. I would think that training regarding how to deal with behavioral problems would be the most pressing. Its rather like the chicken and the egg. Do bad teachers create disruptive students, or do apathetic students lead to bad teachers?

Look at this article by Alan Dershowitz regarding terrorism:

Civilian Casualty'? It Depends
Those who support terrorists are not entirely innocent.
By Alan Dershowitz, ALAN DERSHOWITZ is a professor of law at Harvard. He is the author, most recently, of "Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways."
July 22, 2006

THE NEWS IS filled these days with reports of civilian casualties, comparative civilian body counts and criticism of Israel, along with Hezbollah, for causing the deaths, injuries and "collective punishment" of civilians. But just who is a "civilian" in the age of terrorism, when militants don't wear uniforms, don't belong to regular armies and easily blend into civilian populations?

We need a new vocabulary to reflect the realities of modern warfare. A new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the Middle East: "the continuum of civilianality." Though cumbersome, this concept aptly captures the reality and nuance of warfare today and provides a more fair way to describe those who are killed, wounded and punished.

There is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians, but the former is far more innocent than the latter. There is also a difference between a civilian who merely favors or even votes for a terrorist group and one who provides financial or other material support for terrorism.

Finally, there is a difference between civilians who are held hostage against their will by terrorists who use them as involuntary human shields, and civilians who voluntarily place themselves in harm's way in order to protect terrorists from enemy fire.

These differences and others are conflated within the increasingly meaningless word "civilian" — a word that carried great significance when uniformed armies fought other uniformed armies on battlefields far from civilian population centers. Today this same word equates the truly innocent with guilty accessories to terrorism.

The domestic law of crime, in virtually every nation, reflects this continuum of culpability. For example, in the infamous Fall River rape case (fictionalized in the film "The Accused"), there were several categories of morally and legally complicit individuals: those who actually raped the woman; those who held her down; those who blocked her escape route; those who cheered and encouraged the rapists; and those who could have called the police but did not.

No rational person would suggest that any of these people were entirely free of moral guilt, although reasonable people might disagree about the legal guilt of those in the last two categories. Their accountability for rape is surely a matter of degree, as is the accountability for terrorism of those who work with the terrorists.

It will, of course, be difficult for international law — and for the media — to draw the lines of subtle distinction routinely drawn by domestic criminal law. This is because domestic law operates on a retail basis — one person and one case at a time. International law and media reporting about terrorism tend to operate on more of a wholesale basis — with body counts, civilian neighborhoods and claims of collective punishment.

But the recognition that "civilianality" is often a matter of degree, rather than a bright line, should still inform the assessment of casualty figures in wars involving terrorists, paramilitary groups and others who fight without uniforms — or help those who fight without uniforms.

Turning specifically to the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas, the line between Israeli soldiers and civilians is relatively clear. Hezbollah missiles and Hamas rockets target and hit Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings and schools. They are loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties.

Hezbollah and Hamas militants, on the other hand, are difficult to distinguish from those "civilians" who recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in their attacks.

The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims.

If the media were to adopt this "continuum," it would be informative to learn how many of the "civilian casualties" fall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now follow down the logic of that path, then NO ONE is innocent, not Israeli civilians, no English civilians, or American citizens. Sounds like a perfect example of a slippery slope.

Sounds shockingly like: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

I wonder if that was intentional becuase it would seem to contradict the general theme.



I dont see that.

but this is almost


Doesn't this belong in the Battle in Gaza thread?

The way I see it, Dershowitz is justifying terrorism against civilians as well since civilians are complicit in the behavior of their governments - and particularly democratic ones. Now terrorism can't be justified because terrorists are rogues who don't have a state. But when terrorism is connected with an organized nationality like in Iran or even Palestine, its leaving the door wide open for that state to attack other nations in "self-defense" - just like prepemption policies, and just what the terrorists claim to be doing. If an Israeli rocket made in the United States kills 4 Palestinians then the United States government is somewhat guilty of supplying that rocket. That's really not radical thinking or anything, the United States and Russia used it against each other in the Cold War all the time. But I'd rather not see people in this country go down the path of warfare and avenging vendettas over petty engagements and disagreements.

The conservatives have it completely wrong when it comes to 9/11. 9/11 changed nothing, Americans behave exactly like they did before. Our leaders just have different attitudes. And really 2600+ civilians dying is minor compared to what 90% of the rest of the world's nations have suffered in terms of losses in the past century. I have a feeling that in the annals of human history that will probably go down as a footnote compared to other atrocities. Our government, the defense contractors, and the oil busienss walked right into the hands of Bin Laden by bombing Iraq, locking people up without trials, and issuing a policy of reprisals. Even the Bush administration admitted you can't permanetly defeat terrorism. This shit will just go on forever.