During a recent interview, O'Malley, who has worked in the District Attorney's Office for 26 years, said crime in Oakland has taken a dangerous shift.The last paragraph made me think of Marc MacYoung's prediction that, with the econopocalypse, we'd see more "stress violence":
"Right now we have a lot of really violent crime being committed in open broad daylight in busy neighborhoods and intersections where there are a lot of innocent people," O'Malley said.
Unlike the last serious crime spike in Oakland in the late '80s and early '90s that involved shootings and killings connected to narcotics, O'Malley said, "This is just, frankly, out of control and you can't always pinpoint, 'Oh they're fighting over this corner to sell drugs.'"
The robbery spike is also troubling for O'Malley.
"In my career, I've not seen the type of blatant robberies that we're seeing now with (people) running up and just ripping the gold chain off your neck or shooting someone for the gold chain."
Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick said she's seen Oakland crime change from as little as 10 years ago.
"What I'm seeing that's different from say a decade ago is the wanton use of guns to settle a score," Drenick said. "Whereas in the past, with young people especially, it may have ended with a fist fight. Now everybody seems quick to pull a gun and is in possession of a gun and that is a recipe for disaster."
On the surface one would think: Economic hard times = more robberies and burglaries. Except that isn't the whole picture. In fact, that's just a small percentage of bad economy = more crimes. While 'For-Profit Crimes' (what we call criminal violence) do go up, what goes through the roof are behaviors -- that while illegal -- are not necessarily criminal in intent.Sincerely glad to hear other people's 'hoods are seeing less crime. Over here on the Sunny Side of the Bay™, not so much.
In these economic hard times, you're going to see a lot more of what we call 'stress violence.'
Violence become more common as people's stress level go up. Fights, homicides, rapes, drunk driving, road rage, assaults, domestic violence, ALL go up as people with poor coping skills come under more and more stress. And economic hard times are very stressful.
Experts say there will always be some people who take to robbing liquor stores in tough times. But those people were already likely to rob stores even in good times, making it a statistical wash. And there's something else: When the economy goes bad, many people move in with parents or relatives, and they stay home more — both of which appear to have a calming effect, experts sayposted by saulgoodman at 7:48 AM on October 25, 2011 [2 favorites]
But Kennedy warns it's not all good news.
"Is somebody who's never pulled a strong-armed stickup in their life likely to go start doing that because they lost their job?" he says. "Not so much. Is a household that's already been troubled and has a history of domestic violence going to be even further strained, and is it likely to escalate? Much more likely."
Among the explanations offered for this puzzle is that unemployment and poverty were so common during the Great Depression that families became closer, devoted themselves to mutual support, and kept young people, who might be more inclined to criminal behavior, under constant adult supervision. These days, because many families are weaker and children are more independent, we would not see the same effect, so certain criminologists continue to suggest that a 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate should produce as much as a 2 percent increase in property-crime rates.posted by BobbyVan at 7:54 AM on October 25, 2011
The decision to commit crime (or not) is not merely one taken by a rational maximizing isolated individual. It has a social dimension. People are more likely to commit crime if others in their social networks do, and less likely to do so if their peers are law-abiding. If your friends are robbers, there’s a high chance you will be too.Of course, inertia works both ways. If crime starts rising again, that rise could continue even if the economy starts to improve.
These peer effects mean that trends in crime can feed on themselves. If crime falls for several years - as it did in the 90s and 00s - it might continue to do so, because there are fewer “bad apples” to influence others to commit crime.
It used to be that we were all lawbreakers and even ordinary people had a small level of anti-police hostility and this was true even for the middle class. Cops were not seen as being on our side or enforcing laws that protected us. Even your parents thought speeding laws were a bit stupid and seatbelts were fascist . . . It was more of an understanding that people were bad and wanted to be bad and that society had some space for that.So I was born during the Reagan administration and I have no idea what you're talking about, trying to claim this trait as distinct for baby boomers. People don't complain about speeding laws any more because the national speed limit isn't 55 mph.
In a seminal 2009 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (ungated here), Gordon Dahl and Stefano Della Vigna describe a powerful and low-cost strategy for reducing crime: voluntary incapacitation of at-risk youth.posted by russilwvong at 2:49 PM on October 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Voluntary incapacitation has a significant impact on violent crime: using US data, Dahl and Della Vigna estimate that even limited voluntary incapacitation can deter 175 assaults daily.
Best of all, voluntary incapacitation can be achieved without a costly expansion of our prisons or law enforcement agencies.
A blockbuster violent movie is enough to get youth off the street. Using nation-wide US figures, Dahl and Della Vigna find that "an increase of one million in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 0.5 to 0.9 percent." (Part of this is due to the incapacitation effect, part is also due to decreased alcohol consumption).
Yet even a great movie will only lead to a few days of voluntary incapacitation. Is there a way of getting at-risk youth off the street for longer?
A study by Michael Ward published this month in Contemporary Economic Policy (earlier version ungated here) suggests that there is. He finds that an increase in video game availability, as measured by the number of video game stores, leads to a significant reduction in rates of robbery, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and mortality.
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