Chicago mayoral candidate and, possibly, the next mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson insists that he wants to attack the root causes of crime. Okay, I’ll bite. What are they? According to his public statements he believes that mental illness and lack of economic activity particularly jobs are the root causes of crime.
I think that mental illness, the widespread availability of firearms, and lax enforcement of existing laws are the root causes of mass shootings. Firearms are so widespread now that I don’t believe we can do anything about their availability to individuals who are willing to break the law to get them. We can adjust the requirements for involuntary mental health treatment. That might reduce the number of mass shootings but I doubt it.
I agree with Stanton Samenow’s observation in Psychology Today: poverty doesn’t cause crime; crime causes poverty. Any number of studies have found that black communities have more homicides, shootings, and crimes against poverty than comparable communities with lower black populations. Here’s a report on one of them.
IMO the root cause of crime in black communities is criminal gangs and those are a result of social dysfunction within those communities, particularly family structures. Most black children are born to single mothers and most black households are headed by single parents who are women. While I agree that’s an outcome of slavery and Jim Crow, slavery and Jim Crow have been gone for a long time now. The social dysfunction remains and so does the crime. Until well-meaning people of all races stop patronizing blacks and call out the dysfunction for what it is, the crime will continue.
I dont think we know the root cause of crime. If crime causes poverty then you might expect poverty to show big swings when crime has big swings. We didnt see that. Also, I really cant find examples of high crime rates in areas or among people that are relatively wealthy. I dont know if poverty is causative but it looks like it is probably a necessary condition. If you use Forbes list of safest and most dangerous cities, there are a number of these lists, you see relatively affluent places like Boston, New York City, El Paso and Honolulu on the safe list while St Loius, Mobile, Detroit, New Orleans and Birmingham lead the most dangerous cities. It certainly looks like at the very least affluence is protective.
Its a chicken and egg problem if you want to make poverty OR crime as the initial factor. Was it increasing crime that lead car companies to cut back in Detroit that lead to incomes decreasing, or was it car companies cutting back leading to lower incomes that lead to crime?
I think its likely to be multiple cultural factors.
Steve
On this:
I think we are in complete agreement. However, I think in this assertion:
you’re forgetting your Honoré de Balzac. There’s plenty of crime there. it’s just of the white collar sort.
On reflection I think you’re right about this:
You know, I wish we cared about white collar crime but we largely dont.
Steve