Well thinking about the culture here in the USA has got me to pondering a simple question, has the American propensity for spoiling children and sparing the rod or any other meaningful chastisement for the last 40 years, led to increased gun ownership as people now have to protect themselves from the result of that policy.
I mean think about it you raise children with no boundaries at home or school then you wonder why a large percentage of them end up committing crimes, doing drugs or are pretty much useless human beings. So thanks to an increase in violent crimes their parents caused by not smacking them, later on in life they get shot by people defending themselves or the police.
So do Americans have themselves to blame for their own crime problem, of course it’s probably more complicated than that everything is really but when they elected a community organizer twice in a row you really have to wonder about about the culture and whats wrong with it. They had a perfectly good republic and yet they voted it away into oblivion.
…
It all gets very confusing, as the crime figures are fudged to the point of being meaningless.
If we take the united state uniform reporting figures as perhaps the least fudged, then crimes in the united state are going down to where they were in the fifties or before (again, assuming that figures for that time were reasonably accurate).
In that case, how do we sort through the many possible causative factors to find the real ones? – the methodological problem of the social sciences – post hoc ergo propter hoc is not a good method.
The British figures are fudged to hell. the “Murder” rate counts convictions for murder.
which assumes catching the perp and successfully prosecuting them and them appealing and the conviction being upheld.
What proportion of homicides fit that description is anyone’s guess. As a wild arsed guess, I’d reckon single figure percent. Being generous, if we say ten percent, then Britain’s 0.4 “murders” per 100,000 population per year become 4 homicides per 100,000 per year – around about or higher than the figure for the gun ridden united state.
There are also lots of nasties hidden in that fudge
Cops are lazy, even for a homicide, they’re not going to work too hard when they could be drinking, beating up their girlfriends, or munching dough nuts.
If a perp can leave his mobile phone at home, make his way by pushbike or motorbike with small or fake plates, dress with a hoody and base ball cap pulled down low, baggy trousers and fake nike trainers, emerges from and disappears back into a reasonably camera free area, doesn’t take souvenirs for his girlfriend to find in the freezer, keeps his gob shut and doesn’t boast about it to his mates, and doesn’t act all strange if he meets a cop afterwards…
Then there’s only a slim chance he’ll ever get caught, prosecuted, found guilty etc to get into the figures.
By contrast a distressed spouse covered in blood, with the carving knife with his or her prints on it, and who called the cops, all the neighbours reporting hearing a domestic – is a simple open and shut case – any half skilled interviewer can have it all sewn up in an hour or so, and still make it to the pub for last orders.
The effect on the figures of that (and such meaningless category headings as “known to” which would include a member of a rival street gang, a prostitute and her latest client etc)
result in shite appearing in academic papers about our family and friends being far more dangerous to us than thugs on the street (including the members of the most dangerous gangs of all – those in blue costumes).
as to who become dangerous criminals, there’s a whole career path of learning the way of violence as a successful means to an end, and how to cover for it if questioned. The thugs in blue seem to have that off to a fine art.
I blame the parents 😉
“The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.”…..Edward VIII