The Curious Case of the Fall in Crime.

[Blind groper]

The above title is a quote from the Economist, July 20, 2013.

According to this Economist article, crime has been falling in a dramatic way over the past 20 years, throughout the western world. Not all crime. Violent crimes and physical crimes of property such as bank robberies, car theft, and violent sex crimes like rape. What has not been falling is white collar and computer crime.

Last year in England and Wales, there were 69 armed robberies of banks, compared to 500 a year in the 1990's. In 1990, there were 147,000 cars stolen in New York. In 2012, less than 10,000 were.

These drops in crime are shown all round the developed world, from the Netherlands, to Lithuania, Poland to Japan.

Why is this?
The Economist gives various reasons.
1. The most important reason is simply that advances in security systems makes successful crime much more difficult. Robbing a bank when the teller is behind bullet proof glass, pressing the alarm button and telling the robber to do his worst, suddenly becomes well nigh impossible. Stealing a car with an effective immobiliser likewise. Liquor stores and homes with superior alarms. Burglary becomes less rewarding when homes are fitted with effective locks and noisy alarms.

2. Western societies are growing older, and violent and physical property crimes are the hallmark of young men.

3. Police forces are gaining new technologies for solving crime. DNA analysis. Computer profiles and records.

More stringent prison sentences do not seem to be a major factor, as shown by places like the Netherlands and Germany, who have reduced the length of prison sentences, and still have seen a major drop in crime. A lot of those in prison in countries with high prison populations (the USA has 1% of its citizens in prison) are there because they were drug users, which is an utterly stupid reason to spend up to $100,000 a year of taxpayers money keeping someone in prison.

[laklak]

A lot of those in prison in countries with high prison populations (the USA has 1% of its citizens in prison) are there because they were drug users, which is an utterly stupid reason to spend up to $100,000 a year of taxpayers money keeping someone in prison.

This should be tattooed on the foreheads of every politician in the U.S.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Yep. It's down to easier detection/prevention. Only the truly desperate or stupid try and hold up a bank these days. The clever crims moved into cyberspace a few years back. The Keystroke Kops have yet to catch up.

[Sean Hayden]

edit: out of pub

[cronus]

Yep. It's down to easier detection/prevention. Only the truly desperate or stupid try and hold up a bank these days. The clever crims moved into cyberspace a few years back. The Keystroke Kops have yet to catch up.

They never will. The internet depends on small parts which will be no longer available after the coming economic collapse. In that respect this period of temporary 'good behaviour' is like the endless sands of a pre-tsunami global social malaise.

[Seth]

The pervasiveness of affordable video cameras has a lot to do with the apprehension rate.

[MrJonno]

CCTV can help in catching people not convinced it actually has a lot of use in preventing it (most people won't even know they are being filmed)

[Tero]

What about sun spots global warming and guns?

[Collector1337]

If crime is on such a fucking decline, then what the fuck do we need a police state and all this fucking authoritarian bullshit for then?

[laklak]

If crime is on such a fucking decline, then what the fuck do we need a police state and all this fucking authoritarian bullshit for then?

Apparently it's for our own good. I don't get it, but I'm just a reactionary old fart who still holds that mildewed bit of paper written by old, slaveholding white men as the primary law of the land. Stupid me, eh?

[Tero]

Because people get freaked out by foreign terrorists. Gun enthusiasts going nuts is just everyday news.

[Beatsong]

Yep. It's down to easier detection/prevention. Only the truly desperate or stupid try and hold up a bank these days. The clever crims moved into cyberspace a few years back. The Keystroke Kops have yet to catch up.

That doesn't explain why sex crimes are down though, since most of those are committed in private circumstances by people known to the victim rather than by strangers in CCTV-rich high streets.

It's possible that people are just becoming less violent.

[Rum]

People are getting nicer. Live with it fuckers!

[Seth]

People are getting nicer. Live with it fuckers!

"An armed society is a polite society." Robert A. Heinlein

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Yep. It's down to easier detection/prevention. Only the truly desperate or stupid try and hold up a bank these days. The clever crims moved into cyberspace a few years back. The Keystroke Kops have yet to catch up.

That doesn't explain why sex crimes are down though, since most of those are committed in private circumstances by people known to the victim rather than by strangers in CCTV-rich high streets.

It's possible that people are just becoming less violent.

You are quite correct that most sex crimes take place behind closed doors by family members or friends. However, possibly a large percentage of reported sex crimes are those street attacks by strangers. That's my best guess.