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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 3:21 pm Post subject: LA Homicide Rate Lowest in Four Decades |
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L.A.'s Homicide Rate Lowest In Four Decades
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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced there were 297 homicides in Los Angeles last year, a huge drop from the more than 1,000 slayings in 1992, the height of a massive drug epidemic.
"This achievement is particularly noteworthy given the state of the economy," he said at a news conference. "You walk down downtown, you go to Hollywood, we all know � this isn't hyperbole. Everybody, we all know it's a changed place."
Police say more than half of the city's homicides are still gang-related. But Villaraigosa says things have improved because of former gang members- turned-interventionists "who immediately after a shooting make sure they are calming the waters in communities where otherwise there may have been a retaliation."
Police Chief Charlie Beck told reporters another reason was that he finally was able to hire enough officers to patrol the city and work with the community to prevent crime.
"For the past nine years, and no other city's done this, crime has dropped every year in Los Angeles," Beck said. "Every year." |
Some unmitigated good news. How, then, ever will this thread sustain itself? Maybe speculation on why crime is plummeting around the United States. One theory is that we've locked up so many prospective offenders. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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Good thread. I was just about to post this:
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/eon0106hm.html
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However significant the rout of the poverty-industrial complex, New York�s demolition of conventional thinking about crime was even more momentous. Since 1990, New York has experienced the largest and longest sustained drop in street crime of any big city in the developed world. In less than a generation, many major felonies have fallen 80 percent or more. New York did this by rejecting everything that the criminology and social-work professions counseled about crime. Police Chief William Bratton announced in 1994 that the police, not some big-government welfare program, would lower crime by 10 percent in just one year. He not only met his goal, he bested it�by ruthlessly holding precinct commanders accountable for the safety of their beats, by the rigorous analysis of crime data, and by empowering street cops to intervene in suspicious behavior before a crime actually happened.
Just as the liberal philosophy of exempting the poor from bourgeois standards of behavior set up a vicious cycle of fatherlessness, crime, and dependency, the conservative philosophy of universal standards set up a virtuous cycle of urban renovation. With crime in free fall across New York in the 1990s, the tourism and hospitality industries boomed, triggering demand for the low-skilled welfare mothers whom welfare reform was nudging into the workplace. Businesses moved back into formerly violence-plagued areas, creating more jobs. Neighborhoods were transformed.
To take just one example, contemplate for a moment a small miracle that occurs around 11 o�clock each night at the 96th Street subway stop on the Lexington Avenue line: residents pour out of the subway and disappear into the darkness, heading unconcernedly home. For years, such a routine at such an hour would have been fraught with anxiety. Now, it is simply part of New York�s ordinary rhythm. But it is just such freedom from fear that cities require to reach their full potential as incubators of the creativity that Harvard professor Edward Glaeser rightly lauds.
The national crime drop of 41 percent since 1991 is also the longest and largest national decline in modern history, one wholly unforeseen by criminologists. It was made possible by the increased incarceration rate, which achieved its maximum effect in the 1990s, and by the spread of New York�style data-driven policing. Most significant is that the national crime rate has fallen in each of the last three years, putting the final nail in the coffin of the liberal conceit that a bad economy drives otherwise law-abiding individuals into crime. |
I imagine it is hard to juke a murder stat (maybe downgrade to manslaughter?) but manipulation of crime data is part of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/nyregion/07crime.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
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| More than a hundred retired New York Police Department captains and higher-ranking officers said in a survey that the intense pressure to produce annual crime reductions led some supervisors and precinct commanders to manipulate crime statistics, according to two criminologists studying the department. |
Warehousing deviants likely plays a large role too. Though throwing an otherwise good person who was selling weed into an institution with gangsters might create crime by teaching/normalizing crime. |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Perhaps we can stir the thread up by suggesting, as one theorist did posit "Maybe there are fewer black people in LA these days?" |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| chellovek wrote: |
| Perhaps we can stir the thread up by suggesting, as one theorist did posit "Maybe there are fewer black people in LA these days?" |
Right to it, eh.
This is what google told me:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/cripsandbloods/timeline.html
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Changing Demographics
2000
Los Angeles�s racial makeup is shifting. According to the 2000 Census, South Central is now 47 percent Latino�its black population declining by nearly half in the past decade. In 1996 there were more than 600 Latino gangs in Los Angeles County, as well as a quickly growing Asian gang population of 20,000. In South Central, tensions between African American and Latino gangs are on the rise, and with it, racially provoked gang violence. |
Sergio always has a nice part to play on this subject. What time is it in Saudi? |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| chellovek wrote: |
| Perhaps we can stir the thread up by suggesting, as one theorist did posit "Maybe there are fewer black people in LA these days?" |
Right to it, eh.
This is what google told me:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/cripsandbloods/timeline.html
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Changing Demographics
2000
Los Angeles�s racial makeup is shifting. According to the 2000 Census, South Central is now 47 percent Latino�its black population declining by nearly half in the past decade. In 1996 there were more than 600 Latino gangs in Los Angeles County, as well as a quickly growing Asian gang population of 20,000. In South Central, tensions between African American and Latino gangs are on the rise, and with it, racially provoked gang violence. |
Sergio always has a nice part to play on this subject. What time is it in Saudi? |
Interesting link. Think it'll be a few hours yet before Dear Old Serge is on the go. |
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BaldTeacher
Joined: 02 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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I can't speak for LA, but my mom says that NY in the '70's was like the Wild West. Some places that you can go to now without a problem were no-fly zones.
As for LA, that's an interesting place. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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DC had its lowest number of murders in 40 years. Neighboring Prince Geoges county's crime has shot up in recent years however. My census district was 95% black in 1990. 2000 it was around 75%. Now? 55-60%. Hmm.
That being said, one thing I do like about DC is the large African American middle and upper middle class population that it has. Sadly there are few metro areas in the States that have the same environment. Atlanta, and well, maybe a couple other places in America and that's about it. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:13 am Post subject: |
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Why compare it to 1992? I don't wish to begrudge LA its achievement, but compared to 2009 and 2008, 297 homicides (7.8 per 100,000) shows steady but not dramatic decline
2008: 9.6 per 100,000
2009: 8
2010: 7.8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Los_Angeles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
As you can see, a far more significant improvement occurred last year (a decline of almost 20%) whereas 2010 saw only a 2.5% drop from 2009.
A closer scrutiny of homicide statistics in the US is always necessary - which is to say, controlled for race. Gross homicide stats in the US can totally mislead unless we control for race, because roughly 50% of all homicides involve a black male being murdered by another black male. But black America is only 12% of society; the other 88% (whites, Asians, Hispanics) contains dramatically fewer homicides per capita. It's a night-and-day difference.
LA is 10% black (380,000 people). If we assume, based on national levels, that roughly half of the 297 homicides in LA last year likewise involved a black male being murdered by another black male, the rate here would be far more worrying than the gross rate: 39 per 100,000 blacks (780% of national average), whereas the rate for the rest of the city would be 4.6 per 100,000 (92% of national average) |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| A major reason the US crime rate dropped dramatically in the 90s is because of the legalization and normalization of abortion nationwide. Roe v Wade occurred in the 70s. The aborted fetuses would have all come of crime commiting age in the 90s. Women who aborted their babies were in lower social classes and/or less likely to give their kids proper upbringings. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| conrad2 wrote: |
| A major reason the US crime rate dropped dramatically in the 90s is because of the legalization and normalization of abortion nationwide. Roe v Wade occurred in the 70s. The aborted fetuses would have all come of crime commiting age in the 90s. Women who aborted their babies were in lower social classes and/or less likely to give their kids proper upbringings. |
So you read freakonomics too huh? |
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Jeonmunka
Joined: 05 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:23 am Post subject: |
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| Seriously, it costs a lot more to live in LA and NY than 20 years ago - house prices are high (320k for a 3bdrm in Compton) so all the poorer people have basically left already out into surrounding municipalities and as such crime in the centers is down. |
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BaldTeacher
Joined: 02 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| Keep in mind that those numbers seem to be in LA City only. If you take the LA County numbers into account, you have to factor in Compton, Inglewood, Long Beach, unincorporated East LA, etc. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:42 am Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
DC had its lowest number of murders in 40 years. Neighboring Prince Geoges county's crime has shot up in recent years however. My census district was 95% black in 1990. 2000 it was around 75%. Now? 55-60%. Hmm.
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I assume you've seen the video of the black kids randomly assaulting some white mangina/beta at a metro station?
http://www.tbd.com/blogs/tbd-on-foot/2011/01/man-attacked-by-kids-at-l-enfant-metro----bystanders-watch-film-6880.html
He waves his finger and says "stop". Never once fights back. Though judging from the onlookers, fighting back may have made a bad situation deadly. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Nope, I missed that. I just checked out the WaPo's website and there is a small blog entry on it quoting the article at your link. What a shitty paper the Post has become. |
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conrad2
Joined: 05 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| conrad2 wrote: |
| A major reason the US crime rate dropped dramatically in the 90s is because of the legalization and normalization of abortion nationwide. Roe v Wade occurred in the 70s. The aborted fetuses would have all come of crime commiting age in the 90s. Women who aborted their babies were in lower social classes and/or less likely to give their kids proper upbringings. |
So you read freakonomics too huh? |
Yes. Hard to refute his theory. |
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