America’s safer streets: why is elusive

[Fuchs]

Lead poisoning was quite widespread after the early canned food appeared.

A possible test to see if the correlation may point at a causality would be to look up if there was a crime wave 20+ years after introduction of canned food.
More specifically, crime amongst sailors (who ate much canned food AFAIK) should be well-documented (Royal Navy archives go back centuries in amazing detail).

[Bill Moore]

Interesting observation on the canned food. From a futures perspective I wonder if we'll an upward trend in China and other developing nations that have a growing pollution problem (assuming lead is part of that equation)?

[davidbfpo]

The exchange on lead in petrol, tins etc made me think of a new thread 'What's lead got to do with it?'

Fuchs - don't worry a new thread is not coming.

[davidbfpo]

A different way of looking at criminal justice and more in the USA, a left-leaning UK think tank has published a short paper to impact policies in the UK. It has some amazing statistics and quotes. This one is a stunner, even if the question "Are you on parole or probation?" features in some of our TV diet of US cops shows here:

The overcriminalisation of America has exacted a stunning toll: when you add those who are on probation or parole to the total number of prisoners, one of every 32 adults is under government control. That is a startlingly large swathe of our population to place in the hands of the government.

Link:http://www.ippr.org/images/media/fil...2013_10616.pdf

[Bill Moore]

I think our legal system is trending downwards, especially when we detain people for using drugs and have privatized prisons. Selling drugs and the associated violence is a crime, but using drugs is just stupid, and we confuse being stupid with being a criminal and stress our justice system by doing so. For profit prisons equate to a profit incentive to keep people in jail that gains political power over time when those companies that run these prisons gain greater lobbying power with Congress.

However, all that said I think the rate of violent crime based on percentage of the population is higher in both Australia and England than the U.S.? We have a serious and growing problem with gangs, and while arresting and detaining these gang members may by us time, ultimately we have to find a better way to effective intervene and reduce this threat to civil safety. More prisons would indicate to me that we're failing on a deeper level.

[davidbfpo]

A NYT article, with some surprising figures cited, having worked in an urban area plagued over ten years ago with street robberies for cellphones it tells a familiar story:

In San Francisco last year, nearly half of all robberies involved a cellphone, up from 36 percent the year before; in Washington, cellphones were taken in 42 percent of robberies, a record. In New York, theft of iPhones and iPads last year accounted for 14 percent of all crimes.

Some compare the epidemic of phone theft to car theft, which was a rampant problem more than a decade ago until auto manufacturers improved antitheft technology.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/te...pagewanted=all

Our experience with the manufacturers action to improve security may not end the problem, rather shift it and sometimes with a higher level of violence to the victim - "home invasions" for the keys for performance cars for example.

[Firn]

A NYT article, with some surprising figures cited, having worked in an urban area plagued over ten years ago with street robberies for cellphones it tells a familiar story:

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/te...pagewanted=all

Our experience with the manufacturers action to improve security may not end the problem, rather shift it and sometimes with a higher level of violence to the victim - "home invasions" for the keys for performance cars for example.

I'm not an expert on street robbery but going for the cell phones seems to be pretty rational as long it is not too difficult to avoid getting tracked down. I mean I hardly have a 100€ in my pocket most of the time and I think this goes for most people. However even little girls seem to play around more often then not with rather expensive smartphones.

Not quite as good as waving around 200€ in bills but rather attractive for your little street thug. I wonder how many cents on the $ the robber gets for the phone from his buyer.

Ok, it is on page 2:

In San Francisco, the resale market for stolen phones is thriving, with a new iPhone netting a thief $400 to $500 in cash, said Edward Santos Jr., a police lieutenant who investigates robberies. The starting price of a new iPhone 5, without a contract, is $650.

More then I would have guessed, I thought more about 50%. Such a high share does point to a quite smooth running and efficient operation with a lot of demand coming through the black channels.

“If you look at auto theft, it has really plummeted in this country because technology has advanced so much and the manufacturers recognize the importance of it,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit group focused on improving police techniques. “The cellphone industry has for the most part been in denial. For whatever reasons, it has been slow to move.”

If the black side can pay so much it there have to be rather efficient, likely competing networks behind the scene. If technology can make it much harder for those for just a slight increase in cost it could make a big difference. Getting the incentives right could make that sort of street crime far less attractive.