Dangerous downtowns?

Serious question, was that the whole post?

 

Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community | Office of Justice Programs

 

LOL dude that came out of the Heritage Foundation!

You'd be hard pressed to find a more partisan right-wing publisher anywhere.

 

Your welcome for the time it took to oblige your request

Who published it and put it on their website: hint look at the seal below



I neither wrote the article which still rings true today 25 years after its publication nor have any ability to determine what the United States Department of Justice publishes and post on its website on crimes causation and roots- however I did take the time to acknowledge your request visiting their website and posted the information you requested. Hopefully that showed respect for others, their opinions and requests.

 

A glaring omission from articles of this sort is that they include only 50 states, when the US functionally has at least 52 states, and up to 56 for some purposes. From the Thirdway.org link:

I don't (yet) know just where they got their per-capita murder rates, but some of them are clearly not from the FBI. I'm not yet fluent in the new FBI NIBRS -- and neither are many law enforcement agencies, as evidenced by the fact that a huge number are no longer reporting crime statistics to the FBI, ever since the closure of the old UCR systems after 2019 -- but here are the corresponding estimated figures I extracted from the FBI's website:



That headline above ought to be modified to: "Trump-Voting States account for 8 out of the 12 highest murder rates in 2020," while 2 were Biden-voting states, and the 2 very worst were non-voting states, generally thought of as blue: District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

And if I go by the FBI's figures, Kentucky and New Mexico would be replaced by Illinois and Maryland, both 9.1.

This very common exclusion of DC and PR from nationwide crime comparisons is not unbiased, and not justifiable. These two quasi-states are have very long had the highest murder rates, making them the most glaring examples of the failures of gun controls. Until the Heller and McDonald rulings of 2008 and 2010, they had virtually total civilian handgun bans, making them effectively the most strongly gun controlled states. Only very recently has PR dropped enough to give Louisiana (or Mississippi, or Missouri) opportunity to soon climb up to 2nd place. DC still has a very solid lock on 1st place.

Numerous "nationwide" gun control "studies" seem of show a "benefit" deriving mostly from this selection bias. I can't give them much credibility until they refigure with these states included. But so far, they have declined to do so.

Otherwise, the point that the recent crime wave affects all sides of the political spectrum similarly, is consistent with my understanding from other sources.

 

Yay!

You know we have marriage and family breakdowns in other countries? And yet we manage not to shoot each other!

I'm having one right now, and I haven't shot anyone! Nor have my kids! My wife .... If she had a gun she probably would. But she doesn't, so she can't.

-----

I will give you the "community" thing, though. I haven't felt the same sense of community in the US as I have in a lot of other countries.

The only place I've been in a big US city where I really felt that people felt they belonged to part of a bigger, supportive, whole was Castro in San Francisco. Ironically enough, those were the people who the Heritage Foundation felt shouldn't be allowed to marry.

 

Very telling - the individuals who are trying their best to connect a universal problem in our country to politics.

I hope it's noticed I haven't done that.

Did mention the one post Source and potential conflict of Interest so others could judge its data as they deemed fit.

It is interesting the people who connect this to politics and then accuse others of bias.

I don't think bullets, guns and crime have a political party - they just hurt others.

The one person mentioned family problems - close friends had an issue in their marriage a few years ago - they decided to involve a 3rd party for advice and it saved their marriage.

I hope things work out. It would be rare for a married couple to not have a couple of issues over the life of their marriage.

 

Look again:


Date Published: 1995

This is very clearly NOT a DOJ-OJP publication, but instead a Heritage Foundation publication. But it is included in the NCJRS Virtual Library. Probably because it concerned relevant topics.

"Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is an Office of Justice Programs (OJP) resource offering information to support research, policy, and program development. The NCJRS Virtual Library contains bibliographic information and abstracts of more than 230,000 collection resources and over 80,000 online materials, including all known OJP works.

In October 2014, the NCJRS Virtual Library began to focus primarily on the collection of informational materials and resources produced, funded, and/or sponsored by the OJP program offices. However, all materials housed in the NCJRS Virtual Library prior to October 2014 remain searchable and accessible through Virtual Library services."

 

I mean, apart from parroting right-wing talking points, hinting-without-saying that it's a Democrat-city problem, and linking to a Heritage Foundation polemic, no, no, of course you haven't. And that is admirable.

 

For any interested reader, the full publication is available on the Heritage Foundation website.

I'm pointing this out because the paper itself is not on the DOJ website, it's just.... acknowledged as existing, with a brief abstract and some contact info for getting a copy. Notably not a convenient hyperlink.

Patrick Fagan has never been employed by the Department of Justice in any capacity. He's a full-time religious lobbyist and he's been writing stuff like this for years.

He wrote this paper, published it through a lobbying group, and (somehow) the DOJ has acknowledged its existence, without claiming any sort of ownership or defining any other sort of relationship.

Somebody desperately wants that paper to sound official.

 

Wow

There are only 50 states. Period. It was 48 until Alaska and Hawaii joined in 1959.

 

Please tell that to the FBI, which has long listed more than 50 "states" in its state-by-state charts and tables. I've seen many other federal agencies do the same. I see no reason for me to stop listing DC and Puerto Rico as "states" until all those agencies do the same.

DC and Puerto Rico have greater populations than the lowest population "real" states, and participate in very many of the same economic and social and crime reporting programs that the other "states" do. For nationwide statistics and comparisons, there is no rational reason to exclude them, other than to create or enhance selection biases that favor one's agenda.

 

Now we know where some of the fake news comes from. There are only 50 states. Among other distinctions, States have Senators and Representatives who can make laws in Congress. Third grade stuff.

 

Those federal state-by-state charts and statistics and programs that show or put DC and PR on equal footing with the "real" states, weren't put together by third graders.

We have a disenfranchisement of more than 4 million people, denied federal sufferage simply because of what part of U.S. lands they live on. U.S. citizens who can't vote for President. American citizens that a certain POTUS didn't seem to understand were Americans until almost a week after Hurricane Maria.

What was that "taxation without representation" thing?

Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia don't have too-small populations to be "real" states. If Puerto Rico was allowed to send congresscritters to the House of Representatives, it would have 4 seats, more than what a dozen of the "real" states have. 5 seats before Hurricane Maria.

Excluding these people from "nationwide" statistics, is a farce.

 

meh, I'm not getting hung up on semantics. Yes exactly 50 states. Yes more than 50 things to keep track of for any true full-USA tally.

Aside: I don't know what was in the water in 1959-60; before my time.
If Alaska and Hawaii had not been granted statehood then, they probably never would have.
D.C. and Puerto Rico should have long since been granted up.
#Proud Alaskan-in-L48-Exile#

 

My own mother was born in Alaska, long before statehood. But she was residing in the L48 when reaching voting age, so never missed out. Though one of her siblings would have missed a federal vote.

 

They all went through a pandemic?

"This data makes it difficult to pin recent trends on local policy shifts and reveals the central flaw in arguments that seek to politicize a problem as complex as crime. Instead, the evidence points to broad national causes driving rising crime."

That is part of what I quoted before. There is no simple link. Maybe the policies in a blue city is the cause, but why did the rate rise in a red city without those policies?

In addition to what was said about this source, its premise was proven wrong by the steady decline in crime rates since it was published. In fact, the recent increase is still much lower than when that was written, which itself wasn't at a peak point.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

 

Fun fact - DC residents can vote for President since the twenty third amendment in 1961

 

I agree with you about the broad national issues driving the problem. Also agree with the causes some list as the breakdown of families, general deterioration of societal community and lack of direction and proper role models at the local level for youth.

Very few people would feel safer in larger metropolitan cities these days. Schools in our area canceled annual trips to Chicago due to parental concerns over safety about visiting the City of Chicago area.

We had been looking forward to a family trip to New York to visit the Theater District but cancelled that due to safety concerns with the current state of crime in New York.

The news highlights resident crime concerns on the left coast with cities like San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle which used to be meccas for people to take once in a lifetime trips to visit these once wonderful places.

Our state experiences this on a smaller scale with our largest urban area. There are currently sentiments for the Govenor to have the Attorney General take control of law enforcement in our state's largest Urban area due to its leaders and populace failure to control their situation.

Perhaps more people in these areas increase the crime but most people would certainly feel that crime is more prevalent and your chances to experience it higher in these large cities.

I don't think crime is Democratic or Republican - it hurts people and is tragic for many families.

On another note I would think and crime and the perception of safety would be exerting an enormous economic impact on these cities both in its victims and loss tourism dollars.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chicago-gangs-asked-to-stop-shooting-from-9-am-to-9-pm-you-re-getting-little-kids-killed/ar-AA1fiYp2

 

The primary issues facing the country are the same ones that have been lingering 20 years but worse.

1. Poverty/ Homelessness/Food Insecurity, nothing new but worse recently
A) incompetent Hamb fisted ways of addressing
2. Loneliness epidemic, depending on which study and which age bracket 50-80% of “young” males are single, never married, no kids, few relationships.
A) drastic reductions in college graduation rates, employment rates, and income for a particular bracket of men. There are millions fewer blue collar jobs (male jobs) than decades past and normal men are less educated with lower incomes than women.
B) As Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and other countries with too many idle men show, bad things come from the above.
3. Increasing suicide rates and deaths of despair, see above as its interrelated
A) Mass shootings can mostly be thrown in as a crime of despair coupled with easy access to guns and no laws regulating them.
4. Income inequality is similar to the guilded age with minimal numbers in the real middle class which does nothing positive.
5. Petty crime has tracked how many employees are at a store and cashier’s, as the number of employees has gone down crime has gone up, Lowe’s only has about 1% “shrinkage”, so the narrative might be focused in the wrong directions.

All of the above are being addressed inconsistently in a suck it up buttercup it’s your fault fashion with predictable results.

If we continue to punt we can expect a lot of terrible citizens in the following generations.

you can find thousands of videos showing miles of homeless encampments and miles of drug addicted populous, this isn’t new but few go and look

From what I can tell nobody wants affordable homes (everyone needs a place to sleep )
Nobody wants to address drugs and mental illness in a useful way (cheaper to have certain parts of the country filled with homeless, so we seem to think)
Nobody wants to regulate guns even though the rest of the world does.
Nobody wants to provide positive input to the millions of men who have left society, it’s their fault afterall as there is a double standard of attitudes, treatment and care.
Nobody wants to admit that the US born population has been declining and only increases through immigration.

The increases in crime were mainly those of shock and awe.
Organized crime every 20 years or so will have a foreign group take advantage of our lax ability to hold someone for trial, several crash and grab rings (drive large stolen vehicles into a building and scoop everything) devastated jewish and “India” neighborhoods in the us moving area to area paying bail. Similarly several foreign groups did cross country trips attacking vulnerable businesses. What’s unusual is that dozens of rings all had at it in the last 3 years.

This same type of thing happened over a decade ago and wasn’t stopped until federal groups became involved.

Although this isn’t a large portion of crime and is committed commonly by the same small groups of people
it’s extremely dangerous to citizens, extremely visible and dehumanizes entire communities affected by it. It also writes the “lots of crime” narrative most white Americans seem to have bit hook line and sinker.

The reality is that certain crimes performed by organized/ foreign interests although rare should garner immediate and extreme prejudice to break up the groups and get the heads/inside guys of the organizations.

Thousands of NYC Shoplifting Cases Committed by Just 327 People - The New York Times

Thieves in the Night: A Vast Burglary Ring From Chile Has Been Targeting Wealthy U.S. Households | Vanity Fair

Currently these types of crimes are deprioritized even though it can break how society functions and should be treated as campaigns of terrorism.

If I have the time I will link to some of the recent and past examples of crash and grab groups in the news (outside the western us, talking east and central) as it’s a different dynamic in Cali with young kids picking parts for an insider near the port)

In every case it’s a bunch of patsy’s doing work for someone that knows what they are doing. (How many CATS can a 12 year old sell at a lemonade stand?, the small local gang narrative falls apart without an insider that can safely market, now porch theft/shoplifting to Facebook marketplace is the main front for less valuable items, recent developments suggest many areas have a small number of individuals committing most of the crime)