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There Is No End In Sight

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There Is No End In Sight

Tag Archives: Crime

Aside

Did You Know? NRA Block on Gun Violence Research

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Kevin L in Did You Know?, Petty Politics, Quick Thoughts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

CDC, congress, Crime, gun control, guns, NRA, Obama, Research, violence

Did You Know?

The NRA blocked research on gun violence in the 1990s! It’s true – backed by the NRA, Congress passed legislation that stripped the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of $2,6 million, the amount it had spent on firearms during the previous year. Moreover, the law’s language stated that “none of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.” Obama has since instructed the CDC to continue the research that had been shut down. Unfortunately this period of funding may continue to impact research as there are now fewer experts in this field.

If guns are not the problem, why block research?

Stuff You Should Know: Does owning a gun change your behavior?

NPR, All Things Considered: Debate Rages On Even As Research Ban On Gun Violence Ends

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Bangarang – SKRILLEX

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by Kevin L in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crime, Music, SKRILLEX, Youth

And another one.  The song doesn’t do it for me, but the video is good.  Read into it… there is a lot to see.

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Freakonomics Chapter 4: Crime & Abortion

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Kevin L in Economics

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Tags

Abortion, Crime, Freakonomics, Gender, Roe v. Wade

This chapter seeks to explain the drastic fall in the crime rate which occurred starting in the 1990s through the lens of Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion.  The authors first discredit the many theories applied to this phenomena, then diligently trumpet the large role legalized abortion played in reducing crime.

The chapter does a good job of supporting its position through debunking several theories through logical reasoning.  For example, it points out that increased gun control legislation is likely to be of little consequence given the ease of purchasing guns in the black market.  When defending legalized abortion as a key factor in crime reduction the authors provide a handful of supporting evidence.  In addition to stating the time-lapse connection between aborted births in the 1970s and crime reduction in the 1990s, the authors also create a link between states with higher abortion rates  to states with a greater crime reduction.  They also compare the states that had legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade and find that these states had proportionally sooner decreases in crime rate.  Even when controlling for state-level differences in incarceration, police numbers, and economic situation the finding still remains.

Although the authors do a good job of supporting their hypothesis I feel as though they do not do enough to make their arguments more attractive to a conservative audience.  Establishing a link between abortion rates and violent crime rates is simply not enough.  I would have liked the authors to flesh out why abortions occur and who uses them most often.  Are these single mothers?  Do they come from low socioeconomic status?  Do abortions allow them to obtain higher schooling or more skilled jobs?  This is the kind of data which would have added another context to the argument with ties to welfare and other entitlement programs that have very direct correlations with abortion rates.

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Drug Dealers Ain’t No Superstars

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by Kevin L in Economics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Crime, Economics, Freakonomics, Gangs

It’s Monday and although I haven’t been very productive this weekend I have managed to read through chapter 3 of Freakonomics.  Entitled “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?” the chapter focuses heavily on conventional wisdom and the long-standing belief that drug dealers are big, fancy, rich guys driving beamers.  In reality only a very small proportion of gang members live a wealthy life.  Most are stuck in poverty, subject to all the woes of the drug trade without any real financial benefits.

Levitt and Dubner discuss how, once you look at the incentives, this begins to make a lot of sense.  The rank and file members have an incentive to cause mayhem and pursue violence and fear to make a name for themselves, while the elite have an incentive to prevent this in order to keep business flowing.  Gang leaders could divulge more cash, but this would only give the foot soldiers an incentive to gun for the top spot.  While gangs might portray themselves as the alternative to corporate slavery, they in fact embrace much of the same rigid hierarchy and exploit frustrated workers in dead-end positions.   Oh, and there are those small matters of possible arrest, abuse, addiction, death…I’ll get back to that.

So, this week my assignment is to identify a few key statistics are important in telling the chapter’s story.  The first stats to intrigue me were the income numbers for gang members (pg 100).  While J.T., the leader of the gang detailed in the chapter, averaged a monthly salary of $8,500, the rest of his gang  was paid only a combined $9,500 (including 3 officers and 50 foot soldiers.  That comes out to a measly  $7/hr for officers $3.30/hr for foot soldiers.

After seeing these numbers I flipped back a pages97-98 to the stats on the companies revenues and costs.  I skimmed over them the first time because I had no idea what a reasonable amount would be for a gang and the 2005-2006 dating of the book means a lot has probably changed, especially due to the recession.  The monthly profit was only $18,000, inexplicably lower than I was expecting.  Seriously, only as I write this do I realize that I was expecting AT LEAST a six-figure income, if not a six-figure profit.  Hell, the way the movies portray it I was expecting seven or eight figures!  So yeah, these profits and income stats really stress the story of the chapter.

Let’s return to the dangers of the industry, since that is something we can fundamentally understand.  On page 101 stats are given about the expected fate of a  gang member during a four-year period.  Number of times arrested: 5.9; Number of nonfatal wounds or injuries: 2.4 (not including those given as punishment by the gang); chance of being killed: 25%.  Wow, that’s depressing.  Not only are these guys getting paid below minimum wage, they’re also probably going to be injured or killed.  Really attractive, isn’t it?  For me these were definitely the most powerful statistics of the chapter.

A final stat gave what was, in my opinion, a very insightful perspective on gangs.  As if citing the likelihood of death wasn’t enough, the authors include other figures by which to compare.  Sure, the statistic that the most dangerous job in the United States, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a timber cutter with only a 1-200 chance of being killed over 4 years (shit, that is still a lot!).  No, this statistic only paved the way for this amazing revelation: A death-row inmate in Texas, the state with the highest execution rate, has only a 5% chance of death over the same period!

You know what this says to me?  “Get Rich or Die Trying” is a lie.  The real deal is “Get Rich, Go to Jail, and Live off Taxpayer’s Money.”

You’re safer that way.

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