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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

It's not just bank robbery. Every crime category is now much lower than it was in 1990, in every jurisdiction of the USA. Even if you take a city that people think is ridiculously dangerous, like Camden, New Jersey, the homicide rate was triple 25 years ago.

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Not just in the US. Also in Europe and most of the developed world. Violence peaked in 80's - 90s and then started to decrease dramatically.

Lead–crime connection is the strongest explanation. Past lead exposure functions as a predictor for criminal activity. Crime starts to drop in every country after the use of leaded gasoline is forbidden.

New evidence that lead exposure increases crime https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/06/01/new-evide...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis

More interestingly, we also have cross-national natural experiments, where different countries banned lead gasoline at different times, and the timing of drops in the crime rate is pretty spot-on

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/murder-rate-d...

While the lead theory may indeed be true, one other thing has changed in almost all areas of the world.

Birth rates.

And with declining birth rates, comes a decline in the number of youth, meaning "more of the population" is of an older age. Men are typically at their most aggressive when young adults, and those which have started families, have a different perspective on life.

Note: not saying the above is the cause, but I do believe it to be a valid theory.

edit: it is also plausible that multiple things cause one effect.

Young people are less violent, less likely to get pregnant as teens, drink less and take less illegal drugs then they use to - all per capita.

> less likely to get pregnant as teens

That's caused by providing at least somewhat decent sexual education in schools, although the US is still lacking in mandating sex ed or mandating medically accurate sex ed (=banning "abstinence only").

Are you sure? It could just as well be because of the internet catching our attention so boys and girls don’t spend it on each other like they used to. No evidence for either claim although both sound plausible

Teen pregnancy is heavily studied, it is big social issue. It has pretty large impact on mother, child, father and extended family. The articles I have seen strongly associated sexual education with both less sex and safer teenage sex.

Basically, if you teach kids about sex and anticonception and condoms, they are less likely to do it and more likely to use this condoms and generally behave more safely.

On the other hand, abstinence only education is associated with more pregnancies.

That parenthood out of wedlock is a tragedy is true, but how can you or said articles authors be sure the link between teens today not having them being because of sex ed in school? I’m not saying it’s unlikely, but I’m wondering if there is any evidence showing the correlation, or if the effect is due to any other reason?

Maybe this has something to do with it?

https://uk.reuters.com/article/health-testosterone-levels-dc...

Another possibility, discussed at depth in Freakonomics, is that reducing unwanted children reduced crime rates. There is some controversy about this, but it may be one of the factors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_e...

Yeah, but given choice, I will go for scientific explanation and for what sociologists say then for pop book that was not even peer reviewed.

The peer-reviewed science says that legalized abortion accounts for about 20-30% of the crime reduction we have seen. (Reference: The Wikipedia article I already linked to in the grandparent post)

Here are the peer reviewed papers from one the authors of the pop book:

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/116/2/379/1904...

https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalize...

That possibility can't be the main explanation.

Allowing abortion in the US did not change anything in other countries. Crime rates have dropped in every country shortly after leaded gasoline was phased out.

I keep hearing that crime in rural areas has been going up and that now even cake wrangling is a problem liked in old wild west movies. Your general point that on a lawyer scale we are safer than ever stands

Best source short googling could find: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nothing-but-you-and-the-cows-an...

What's cake wrangling?

Maybe an autocorrect from cow rustling? I can’t find anything online about cake wrangling, exciting as it sounds.

A rural pastry heist?

You always hear about Chicago gun violence but that's because Chicago is a dense city. If you correct for population density, rural America is a blood bath.

Nothing like Baltimore and St. Louis but Chicago is still in the top 10 for murders in at least some measure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

the per capita homicide rate for baltimore in 2019 was an all-time high. the previous record was set in 2017, and the record before that in 2015.

Unfortunately, this talking point (one I’ve put to good use over the last 20 years) is on shakier ground recently. Crime rates have have been rising for several years now in many U.S. cities and in some cases they’ve eclipsed the 90s highs.

https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-soft...

St. Louis is an interesting case because while their homicide rate (not overall violent crime, which is still way down, like every other city) approaches record highs, their homicide clearance rate has never been worse. The St. Louis cops are just historically bad at their job, which might not generalize to a trend.

Bad as they may be, an explanation that focuses on the ineptitude of the SLMPD doesn’t cut it. Homicide rates are way up all over the country.

https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/murders-crime-shooting...

Have you read your own article?

Numbers are spiking for 2020.

I wonder why? A global pandemic, mass unemployment, lockdowns, political tensions.

Please don’t ask people if they’ve read the article. It’s obnoxious.

And, no, it isn’t just 2020. The homicide rate in St. Louis bottomed out in 2003 at a rate of 21.8 per 100k. By 2014 it had more than doubled to 49.9. By 2015 it had nearly tripled to 59.3 per 100k.

And it’s even higher now. It’ll end this year in the 70s per 100k, eclipsing the 1993 high. It’s been a steady march up from the bottom.

And the trend is similar in other cities.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis

You kept spamming the same comment.

Regarding crime, there is one obvious answer. Inequality. The US Gini coefficient has been going up for 3 decades, I think.

The reduction effect from getting rid of leaded gasoline could only outweigh this for so long...

Poor people commit more crimes and you're starting to have more and more poor people.

“It’s uniquely lead.”

Maybe, but rates are back up decades after we banned lead.

“Ok, well it’s uniquely the St. Louis police.”

Nope, sorry. Rates are up everywhere.

“Well then it’s just 2020! What a weird year!”

Nope. Rates have been rising for years.

“Ah, well then it’s obviously inequality.”

Why do people think not only that there has to be an immediate and obvious explanation for this trend, but also that they know exactly what it is?

For that matter, why are people so anxious to explain this away? It’s very confusing.

The fact is we don’t know why it’s happening. It’s complicated. It’s definitely happening. And we don’t know why. It’s ok to say, “I don’t know.”

I don't know but my money is on inequality. All the countries with high levels of inequality have this problem.

For example Eastern European countries generally have moderate to low inequality levels and low GDP per capita. South American countries have high to verify high inequality and comparable GDPs per capita. Eastern Europe is much safer statistically than South America.

Ignore this at your own peril...

It’s surprisingly hard to find good charts on this topic, but I stumbled across this thread today:

https://twitter.com/Crimealytics/status/1343955297073770496?

These charts very clearly show an uptick in the nationwide homicide rate starting in 2014. It then levels off. And then there’s a big jump again this year.

This is entirely consistent with my claim that rates are way up nationwide and that they started going up before 2020.

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