Hacker News Reader

Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

Then why did Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan see the same drops in crime? They all lock up a minuscule fraction of their populations by comparison and had larger or similar drops in crime.

The timing is also wrong, the drop in crime started before incarceration ramped up.

Also as I mentioned the plurality of incarceration is for nonviolent crime, a lot of which is simple drug possession.

View on HN

They didn't:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homicide_Rate_in_N...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/14/national/crime-...

The Norway peak in 2011 is entirely from the Utøya mass homicide.

Japan follows a similar curve despite starting and peaking later, 70% of those crimes for the whole period are nonviolent petty thefts. My mistake in including Japan doesn’t support either point your tried to make. Neither place has mass incarceration.

But there is no decline.

The Nordic countries[1] all peak around '86-'92. Homicide is down world-wide since 1990[2]. This is a weird argument to make. I've never even encountered anyone who disagreed with this who has even a passing familiarity with criminology, economics, or broad societal trends.

I'm not even sure what you're actually arguing here. You're coming across like a contrarian who is frantically googling for a counter point.

Crime in Germany peaked in 1992[3]. Italy 1991 [4] Canada also 1991 [5]

[1] https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A526664/FULLTEX... [2] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Crime_drop [3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2018... [4] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2018... [5] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2018...

The problem is there is no evidence for any crime boom unless you pick the right location and the right beginning year (typically the post war years) or some such contrieved scenario. Even the graph in your second link shows it was completely insignificant.

The whole discussion is about the post war period. But if you look back further, homicide rates where higher. Again I’m not aware of any scholar, police organization, or or anyone really who disputes this. What even are you arguing here?

I'm arguing here that your views are fuelled by wishful thinking, if not nonsense.

You can't turn the world into utopia by sticking to a moral panic triggered by the civil rights movement.

There's no utopian thinking here, just a recounting of statistics. Crime is a lot lower now in the US an Europe than it was for most of the post war period. In so far as we have data, there's a lot less murder now than at any time for which we have records.

Again these are basic facts. I'm not drawing any conclusions here really.

But why do you need to cherry pick the data, if it's so clear cut?

https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/crime_statistic.htm...

The whole discussion is about the post war increase, peak, and then decrease in crime. It isn't cherrypicking to have a scope for a discussion. I'm well aware of the long term trend here and mentioned it elsewhere. This matters because the 1990-ish peak is on par with crime levels at the end of the 1800s since people have limited lifespans, a doubling of the homicide rate in a person's lifespan is alarming. It's worth exploring and unpacking the reasons for the increase and decline. Perhaps there are policy lessons to be learned, and moreover there was no guarantee that 1992 would be the peak.

You've simultaneously argued that there is no downward trend, it doesn't matter in the long term, it did happen but because of mass incarceration in the US, and you've just been tossing out contrarian bullshit. You're acting in bad faith, and that sucks.

Yes it is cherry picking. You picked the starting date to make it seem like there was a dramatic rise, while looking further shows a post war dip, and return to "normal".

I argued first with the incarceration, which suggests the opposite.

You also said it happened in all countries, while it in fact didn't.

You ignore the inconsistencies and keep pointing back to that single piece of data that seems to support your position.

There doesn't seem to be any general improvement in behavior, only a decrease in standards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com