Which is the preferable trend? NYC or Counties Manukau?
Now I've just read in the NZ Herald : Counties Manukau police, who are investigating the three homicides, say they don't believe crime is escalating.
They don't believe their own statistics. What hope.
4 comments:
What hope indeed.
Interesting that your NYC graph starts with 1990 figs. That was the last year in which I lived in the US, just outside NYC.
Crime was worsening. The subways were disgusting. I used it once; never again. I remember it all coming to a head when an office worker in midtown popped across the road for a donut one morning & was gunned down in a random drive-by shooting; the sort of incident previously contained to the gang-infested streets of Bronx and Harlem.
All hell broke loose. The public was visibly angry; it was the proverbial last straw which paved the way for 'broken windows', etc, and the falling rates ever since.
There is no connection between arming the police and a reduction of crime rates in NYC. The police were armed when the rate was going up as well. It is a variable that did not change so it could neither be the cause of the increase or the decrease.
Next, the reference by a commentator to the so-called "broken window" policy is equally invalid. Other cities which did not follow that policy also had decreases in crime rates during the same period and some of them had steeper decreases. NYC was behind the curve in many places, not ahead of it.
A prime cause of fluxuations in crime rates is demographics. Criminals are more likely to be young than old, from their teens to 30s. As a population ages the crime rate will drop as there are fewer young people. Crime rose with the maturing of the baby boomers and decreased as they aged.
There are other factors of course. For instance, successful interdiction of drugs raises the price of drugs. Addicts who want/need a fix and are criminally prone then committ more thefts or muggings in order to fund the same amount of drug usage. Successful interdiction also raises profits for drug dealing making "turf" more valuable and increasing the conflict over control of said turf.
I didn't intend a connection. Simply that being like NYC might not be such a bad thing if you want to be living where crime is trending down. I don't think it was the right place for Key to point to.
Demographics are not the prime factor in fluctuating crime rates. I can blog a graph to demonstrate this. And demographic change couldn't explain the violent crime rate climbing swiftly in Counties Manukau over just three years. Agree it is a factor but not the overriding one.
I didn't suggest/mention a connection between arming police & reduced crime in NY either. I, too, thought Key's using NY a silly example.
However, Anon, the fact remains that serious crime in NY *did* reduce simultaneously with the introduction of the crackdown on minor/nuisance crimes.
Eg: In Brooklyn, idiots with massive boom-boxes routinely drove residents nuts with the noise all hours of the day & night. Police started confiscating on sight if the volume was excessive - problem solved quickly.
Eg 2: The subway was losing money hand over fist because "style-jumping" (not paying) had become endemic. Firstly by the usual losers - and then lots of people, most of whom would have ordinarily paid for a token, but weren't after seeing no ramifications for the former. It had all got out of hand because the police paperwork wasn't worth it by comparison if they did catch someone. As a result, the subway was losing a lot of money, which contributed to its sorry state.
The paperwork required was minimised making it easier for police. Problem solved quickly; more money for the subway.
Two real examples of nipping problems in the bud.
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