I thought you meant that. But this might be hard, because of how people mix. You’d only end up getting recent immigrants. Which then could more be measuring violence among immigrants than among cultures.

Only if you insist on 100% precision, which I don’t. Feel free to compare white American generally to an weighted average among the European countries that make it up, and do the same for blacks, Asians, etc. I don’t think it’s going to change the results all that much.

With a 25% re-incarceration rate, on a very large sample, surely it’s possible to isolate those factors that contribute most to recidivism. Perhaps a very efective crime prevention method would then be simply to refuse to release those who display high likelihood of re-offending. Must we really wait until a violent offender, released from prison, assaults, rapes or kills another innocent before deciding that they’re sufficently dangerous to deserve further incarceration?

I thought you meant that. But this might be hard, because of how people mix. You’d only end up getting recent immigrants. Which then could more be measuring violence among immigrants than among cultures.

Full disclosure of writers bias. I am a former Jarhead who killed for America 40 years ago. I ame related to former Jarhead killers and current Jarhead killers. On the rare occasion I say a prayer I thank God that there are Jarhead murders that kill bad guys so my grandkids, my kids, my wife and I can live in security and freedom. My strong bias is fully disclosed!

but those laws go in a package of ‘progressive’ government policies concerning crime and punishment

Hence my reference to confounding factors. I think many of us expected a rise, just not as meteoric.

I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the rise in gun crime in the UK following the gun bans after Dunblane.

I think some people did. DC’s murder rate tripled after their absolute handgun ban, and you can look at what happened to Jamaica after enacting laws like possession of a single round of ammo being a prison offense. No, I don’t think the majority of the change is attributable to gun laws, either, but those laws go in a package of ‘progressive’ government policies concerning crime and punishment that lead to these results.

Given a choice between putting violent people in prison or creating laws to keep everyone “safer” which amount to turning society into one big prison, I know which one I think is more “civilized”.

It took multiple Cray computers operating in parallel for the geniuses on the left to produce correlations attibuting the results to other factors.

Even though I think there is a definite correlation between a lawfully armed (or potentially armed) public and lowered crime rates, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the rise in gun crime in the UK following the gun bans after Dunblane. And there were/are some confounding factors there…but nothing prepared us for the meteoric rise in violence that they’ve experienced.

I think it’s generally true that more cops means less crime. However, it’s obvious to me that it’s not a first-order function; more likely it asymptotically approaches some minimum value. Because of that, there is a point where adding another police officer won’t reduce crime “enough”.

So, the question becomes this: if it’s true that we can pay for an additional cop on the streets for the same price as incarcerating 3 offenders, does that additional cop prevent 3 crimes a year? That would depend on the size of the city, the overall crime rate, and other factors. I imagine that if it’s true in Chicago, it wouldn’t be true in St. George, UT. And even if it is true in Chicago for one officer, would it be linearly true for 100? 1000?

I don’t pretend to have any answers, just thinking out loud.

cfbleachers – That 50% you speak of, which believes in juducial activism, short sentences for child sexual offenders, abolishing the death penalty, etc., etc., unfortunately already loudly proclaims their belief that America is a police state. It’s tough to anticipate serious solutions for reducing violent crime from that side with going in attitudes such as those.