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Comment by seivan | Hacker News Reader

Another bullshit article. Crime in Sweden is insane, I don't feel safe anymore.

We barely jail anyone for crimes, it's always fines and community bullshit service when it should be prison.

Yeah! For instance, the homicide rate in Sweden is about 1 per 100k, whereas the rate in the USA is only 4.7 per 100k. (1.2 in the UK, 3.5 in Europe as a whole, 6.9 worldwide, 1.5 for Northern Europe, the subregion to which Sweden belongs.)

(Why look at homicide specifically? Because almost all cases get reported and the definition of homicide is fairly uncontroversial. With some other crimes -- rape is a particularly bad example -- definitions and reporting rates may vary wildly from country to country.)

Regrettably, how safe you feel is strongly influenced by what you see in the media, hear from your friends and family, etc., and unless you are exceptionally careful about your mental hygiene and pay a lot of attention to the relevant statistics the connection between how safe you feel and how safe you actually are is probably quite weak.

The problem is that looking at national numbers is not representative of most people's experience. For example, my "town" of 140,000 (Cary, NC) has only had one murder in the past five years and is currently listed as the safest city in the US with population between 100,000-500,000 (http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/29/3323828/cary-claims-l...). I personally mostly ignore the police but keep them in mind as a civic resource to leverage for answers about things I don't know how to find out any other way. In a small, safe city, calling the non-emergency line can be a useful source of information. Heck, the electric service powering my neighborhood is run by the neighboring town of Apex, and their off-hours emergency line redirects to the Apex police department, who presumably handle coordinating outage reports with the emergency techs and line workers. I'm not trying to claim things are Andy-Griffith-in-Mayberry, but it's certainly closer to that than the other extreme.

Besides actual skewing, you have localized situations where the relationship of the police to the citizens (and media) is personal, friendly, helpful, and generally constructive. For every "stop and frisk" type story there's a cop helping a stranded single mother change a tire, etc.

A lot of people will find this offensive, but it's mostly because of immigration. Sweden has a one of the most liberal immigration policies in Europe, with more and more immigrants coming in every year, and crime is increasing relatively fast. It's not just correlation: serious crime (violence, theft) is overrepresented in immigrant groups, especially African and Asian immigrants, who are also less likely to serve prison sentences. There are statistics available for all these claims but I'll probably just be labelled a racist and ignored so I won't bother finding them.

You are being racist. What you're saying is that immigrants are somehow more inclined to commit crimes simply because they're immigrants. That _is_ a racist statement and you're also ignoring the real reason.

The reason crime is increasing is that Sweden has become a more unequal and segregated society. Immigrants have been hit harder by this development because of, for example, discrimination on the job market.

So basically you should stop complaining about the immigration policy and start demanding equality.

Enforcing equality has historically shown to have the opposite effect. Thomas Sowell, an African American (discrimination is more prevalent in the states) has written extensively about this, as have many others regarding quotas and other forms of forced 'equality'. So no, I won't demand equality, also because I believe in the fact that employers should have the freedom to hire whoever they want without state regulation.

I really don't like this mentality of entitlement, and the excusing of any negative aspects of poorer groups on the richer. Interestingly this behaviour is more passionate in the middle classes than from people who are actually living in poverty. Ted Kaczynski talks about this.

So you think it's perfectly fine to refuse to hire somebody just because of their ethnicity? Wow.

Also, just because you can find one right wing economist supporting your view doesn't mean you're right. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the fact that inequality leads to higher crime rates.

I'm sort of starting to think that you're really just trolling, seeing how Ted Kaczynski is a convicted serial killer with pretty crazy idea. Not someone I'd use to back my ideas in a discussion. I guess you have to use whatever you can get your hands on.

Yes, I think employers should be able to refuse somebody based on ethnicity, whether I agree with the act itself or not is irrelevant, I believe in the freedom to do so. My personal opinions regarding employment do not affect my belief that you can't force equality.

One economist supporting my view doesn't make me right, okay, but you haven't really added anything, you just labelled him right-wing and left it there, probably because being right-wing means being wrong to you. The arguments and evidence is there though.

Your posts are full of logical fallacies, another one is present in your last paragraph (ad hominem - is Kaczynski's work on maths now wrong too because he murdered someone?), so I'm going to stop responding to you. I've had these arguments with liberals too often, where they accuse me being an evil, immoral person because I don't think a better society will result from just giving and giving until everybody's seemingly equal.

Your economist being right wing is relevant because most libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality. Noting that a source is biased is a valid point.

I agree that pointing out that Kaczynski is an insane serial killer who forced a bunch of papers to publish his anarcho-primitivist manifesto by threatening to keep bombing people (WTF?) doesn't prove he's a poor mathematician. However, we're not talking about his maths skills. Being a brilliant mathematician doesn't really make you an expert on social issues.

"Economic inequality is positively and significantly related to rates of homicide despite an extensive list of conceptually relevant controls. The fact that this relationship is found with the most recent data and using a different measure of economic inequality from previous research, suggests that the finding is very robust." - Wikipedia

While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.

> libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality

You just made this up, or, you don't understand the difference between trying to force equality and equality itself. Equality may have positive effects, trying to force it upon people does not, this is a well-documented phenomenon Example, colleges - entry requirements are lowered in top colleges for Black students, who, in turn, have higher drop out rates because they can't keep up.

>While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.

This is the equivalent of saying "your sources are biased, mine are not" to affirm your socialist ideas.

1) Equality doesn't "just happen". It's something that must be actively pursued. Basically all equality is "forced".

Also, the type of positive discrimination that you describe is irrelevant to this discussion. Your ramblings on "forced equality" were in response to my view that you shouldn't discriminate job applicants because of their ethnicity.

The absence of discrimination is not the same thing as positive discrimination.

2) Whether or not my ideas are socialist (I think "progressive" is a better word) is irrelevant here. The truth is, I can back my claims with credible sources. You cannot.

whatever... start by repaying the slaves 500 years of forced work without pay, then we can start talking about entitlement.

Oh sorry ! you're right,they were housed and feed lol...

berrypicker my a ...

The reparations for slavery argument is a bit of a cop out.

Swedes didn't import any black slaves (I know of), do they still have to take part in repaying?

They are inclined to commit crimes because they are poor and because they fit poorly. Both things are because they are immigrants.

If you bring 10 mln new immigrants into a country tomorrow, of course they will all resort to crime - you didn't provide them with a job and maybe there isn't a job for them, you didn't let them entangle with the rest of population, etc... Even when viewing from non-racist POV it should be obvious one should be very careful with bringing in large qualities of immigrants, especially poor and undereducated ones. When you do, everyone will suffer including already-integrated immigrants from previous wave.

"Immigrant" is not a "race".

That said, a very recent report in the UK shows that immigrants are more productive and add value in the UK, contrary to right wing hate mongering. No idea if that is the same anywhere else, but it does show a difference between what we are told and the actual economic facts.

While it is true that "immigrant" is not a "race", the idea that swedes are inherently less criminal than all other ethnicities is still racist.

One might argue that "racist" should be replaced with the term "xenophobic" or something like that. However the underlying assumption is still that some groups are "better" than others simply because of their ethnicity.

Hmm, crime is present in highly dense, poor areas, color me surprised. /sarc

Crime is increasing because the society can't integrate them fast enough. It's literally same deal before abortions were an option. More people, less resource on a local level, leads to crime growing. This has nothing to do with the minorities, but how they are being handled.

Most immigrants come to Sweden for a better quality of life, and they get it: the government gives them housing, social services, education, money etc. Any place in Sweden, even these 'highly dense, poor areas' you're talking about, are better than where most immigrants originate.

Yet you blame the rest of society for not 'integrating' them better? I also hate this constant attributing of violent crime to poverty. There are high poverty-low crime areas in many countries. If you're willing to blame crime on some cultural aspect of society, but only in some cases, then it's a double standard.

> I also hate this constant attributing of violent crime to poverty.

This seems like an empirical question, not something to like or hate. Does poverty drive crime? Is reducing poverty effective in reducing crime? If yes, then I would say that is a good place for policies to focus.

I know more about Denmark (where I live) than Sweden, but here poor areas do seem to be by far the source of most crime, and that applies to both immigrants and non-immigrants who live there. The social problems in the different communities manifest somewhat differently, but both native & immigrant communities in the "bad" parts of Copenhagen have social problems. The biggest difference seems to just be that they join different gangs: ethnic Danes in areas with high degrees of social problems get involved in mainly-Danish biker gangs, while immigrants with social problems get involved in mainly-immigrant gangs. A large feature of Copenhagen crime in recent years has been the Danish and immigrant gangs fighting for control of the drug market. (Prior to that, the Danish gangs fought among themselves for it, so immigrants didn't start this particular problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Nordic_Biker_War)

How many shrinks does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the lamp bulmb must want to be changed.

How do you integrate someone unwilling to do so?

Not sure what the shrink comment is about :/

How do you know they are unwilling? Have you tried? What are your proof they are unwilling?

Any system can say well we tried but they are unwilling or repent-less. What applies in this example applies to US. Their system tries its best but gosh darn it, those repent-less Hispanic and Blacks are unwilling to repent in face of prison. It's very easy for people to delude themselves of their greatness.

We in sweden also have Victim Cardigans. A type of clothing that is worn by those people who types "SD2014" in internet comment fields. This item allows the wearer to dodge discussions because the wearer is a victim of the "PK-maffia" a hypothesized shadow organization that enforces only politically correct viewpoints regarding immigration and disallows the wearer from expressing harsh "truths". In reality Sweden has a very open discussion climate and every viewpoint is accepted as valid, however stupid and/or inhumane. Problems regarding immigration are frequently discussed, however the majority opinion is that crime rates that seemingly correlate with immigration are better explained with class and economic/social situation than ethnicity. So those who have racist views are a minority (at the moment) and therefore, according to themselves, oppressed. But the color of the Victim Cardigan that berrypicker proudly wears, it's magnificent!

"crime rates that seemingly correlate with immigration are better explained with class and economic/social situation than ethnicity"

You don't have to be racist, you can go all progressive: don't bring people in country that would decrease its human development level. Only bring those who will contribute and blend in.

test

Providing statistics does not make you a racist. Providing false claims such as "crime is increasing relatively fast" (reported crimes decreased by 1% in 2012 compared to the year before) while trying to attribute this to immigrant groups does.

As for statistics, people with little to no income are also "overrepresented" in crime. Who would have guessed.

Like somebody else said in the thread, look at crimes like homicide and theft, whose definition are uncontroversial. Crime is rising.

>År 2012 konstaterades 68 fall av dödligt våld i Sverige, vilket är en minskning jämfört med år 2011, då 81 fall konstaterades. Nivån för 2012 är den lägsta noteringen under de senaste tio åren.

>Antalet fall av dödligt våld uppvisar relativt stora upp- och nedgångar mellan olika år och har den senaste tioårsperioden fluktuerat mellan 68 och 107 fall årligen.

>I ett längre perspektiv uppvisar det dödliga våldet en nedåtgående utveckling.

Source: http://www.bra.se/bra/brott--statistik/mord-och-drap.html

Sorry for the Swedish but basically: Long term the deadly violence has had a downwards trend.

Where are your statistics that they are rising?

Well, the only crime that has a really uncontroversial definition would be criminal homicide (certainly a small number could be misattributed to suicide, but still - a dead person is a dead person, no "made up" charges, no non-filed charges). So... according to BRÅ (Crime-prevention council, the government agency in charge of crime-related statistics in Sweden, the following can be said about homicide in Sweden:

- The number of homicides (all kinds) in Sweden 2012 was 68. That is an all time low. - The average over the past 20 years is around 95 homicides per year (and declining) - Adding to that is that the Swedish population has risen with 10.5% the last 20 years (8.7M to 9.6M), meaning the per-capita crime rate has dropped even more - Especially noteworthy is the drop in homicides of children under 15

I would not say theft has an uncontroversial definition, at least not nearly as uncontroversial as homicide...

There's nothing offensive about it, this certainly is plausible and need not be due to any inherent racial differences. But you really should back up your claims with evidence rather than copping out as in your last sentence. If anything the omission of statistics makes it more likely someone will attack you rather than debate the facts.

The statistics on this are fairly clear, but not very well published. It would certainly be possible to dig them up, but a comprehensive review would require a bit of work. You could find this in the official statistics, but newspaper folks are reluctant to compile them and put them on the front page.

In Norway, the per-capita rate of violent robberies, burglaries and violent rape is overwhelmingly larger in immigrant populations than the native. But it's a bit taboo to discuss this in polite company.

And yet, when you control for other biases (like income level, employment status, adult figures in household), this difference between immigrants and non-immigrants seem to disappear... almost like the defining factor is not where you (or your parents) were born, but more like your relative position in the society. Strange, huh?

Can you prove this? It's the first time I have heard someone make this claim, although it seems like something which is reasonable to test for.

I'd say it's generally believed to be the truth in Sweden, however, it's a heavily politicized question. Crime statistics are very complex and immigration is such a political hot potato that mixing the two together makes it nearly unworkable.

Proving criminals are innocent victims of poverty and class is difficult unless you are of Marxist persuasion. Statistics related to immigration and crime are obscure, as definitions of crimes change and entire classes of statistics are forbidden to do for political reasons (e.g. tracking offender's race or religion)

However, one point of view is that it's the opposing viewpoint that must be proven. It's also hard to prove that being "immigrant" or "non-european" is causing you to be a criminal, unless you are a nationalist.

Personally, I'd say it's asking the wrong question. We want to reduce crime and poverty, and the question is how to do it. If it was easy to prevent poverty, it would be done already. And frankly, if Sweden hasn't prevented poverty "enough" when non-working immigrants are provided with food, clothes, housing, cable-TV and mobile phones, then when is it really prevented?

Example sources: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/gruppsida.aspx?programid=3615&g... http://www.svd.se/opinion/ledarsidan/brottslighet-bland-inva... http://www.advokatsamfundet.se/Advokaten/Tidningsnummer/2010... http://www.bgf.nu/faktabanken/kriminalitet/brabra2.html

and I'm not writing a dissertation in sociology here, unless you want to give me enough bitcoins :)

Let's assume what you say is true, why, still, should I support immigration, when almost all immigrants are from social groups where 'income level, employment status, adult figures in household' are in a range where crime is high?

Not imprisoning people for minor crime is sane as criminals incarcerated have a higher chance of relapsing into crime than those who recieved suspended sentences. The goal of the justice system should be to prevent crime, not to dish out revenge because it feels good.

Allow me to be blunt:

Who the hell cares how safe you FEEL?

That's just a reflection of how much the media has coloured your view on how much crime is prevalent. Says next to nothing about how safe you actually are, which is the only important statistic.

> Who the hell cares how safe you FEEL?

You should, how safe you feel is part of your quality of life. It's correct that it may not reflect objective statistics, and that it's influenced by media, but the fact remains.. how you feel affects your life.

For example the situation with healthcare. Your health insurance adds to your quality of life even when you are not using it.

You are always using your health insurance. Saying that you aren't using your health insurance when you are not currently filling out a form to pay for a doctor's visit or hospital stay is like saying that you're not using your car when your foot isn't currently on the gas.

Your "bluntness" added little except rudeness to the discussion. You could have expressed this point in a much less contentious way.

>Who the hell cares how safe you FEEL?

Right-wing populist anti-immigrant political parties.

This is truly bullshit. Violent crimes in Sweden is at an all-time low. The primary reason for some statistics to indicate raising crime-rates is that the tendency to report a crime has risen a lot lately (a very good thing). The fact that you're feeling this way is purely due to a shift in how Swedish media reports on crime (30 years ago an assault in a smaller Swedish city would not make the national news, now it's very much highlighted), which in this Internet era of connectivity makes you feel a lot more is happening in your near vicinity.

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