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Mostly Genius – February 23, 2009
Breakthrough on broken windows
I remain unconvinced that “disorder” is a cause of crime. It seems to me that the increased police presence and attention to particular high crime areas are probably the main factors in the reduction in calls to the police. If the criminals see an increased police presence in an area I am betting that they change areas rather than permanently stopping the commission of crime. I am all for cleaning up a neighborhood, but I am not expecting that alone to reduce illegal activity.
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Mostly Genius – February 20, 2009
The Mugger’s Wallet
I don’t know that the “fake wallet” strategy is really all the new or innovative, but I do find the comments interesting. It seems that most of the people are operating on some internally generated fantasy of what a mugging might look like. These fall into a few broad groups:
The Hippies:“…so you’d rather kill some poor bastard down on his luck than part with a few bucks? That’s some good humanity right there. “
So their mugger isn’t a person who has decided to make a career out of taking other peoples property by violence, but a person driven to desperate measures by circumstances.
The Gunfighters:“My mugger’s wallet is a Springfield XD .40 Sub-compact and many hours of training for just such a situation. Make my day.” Life imitates Hollywood, where the hard-bitten gunfighter rids the world of evil-doers to the accolades of the crowd and a hearty pat on the back from local law-enforcement.
The Tough guys:Yeah, I have a body build that makes me look like the kind of guy who beats up muggers for fun. I might put one of these together just so the mugger will feel totally bad ass before I go all ninja on him.
Because the muggers are never bigger, better armed, or working in groups. I once saw a security detail from the US that looked like it was made of football linemen turned bouncers. While that would probably be impressive in a US night club, it didn’t dazzle me to much in country where street kids have AK47’s and two magazines.
The Good Area Guys:I use the “don’t be in places where you’re likely to be mugged” defense.
Because muggers obey some sort of criminal zoning restrictions. At best this is optimizing a statistical trend, but doesn’t really apply to individuals that actually leave their homes occasionally.
There were also some good, thoughtful comments:
The issue isn’t “is their life worth the money in my wallet”, but rather “is their life worth my life”. The act of shooting someone, even in justifiable self defense will undoubtedly cost you more time and money than a stolen wallet.
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Mostly Genius – December 18, 2008
Orlando police chief’s top goal for 2009 is to take guns away from criminals
The article doesn’t explain how the police chief is going to go about accomplishing this, and I am sure the devil is in the details:
“It’s going to take a whole lot of people to help us do that,” said Demings, who pledged to work closely with the public, prosecutors and legislators for stricter gun control.
“It’s not about keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who have every right to possess them,” she said. “Our initiative will focus on the people who are not supposed to have them.”
The most interesting bit of the article is here:
Data released Wednesday show the male murder victims and suspects share a common background of repeated arrests without imprisonment.
At least 95 percent of the victims and suspects had criminal histories. One-third of the suspects had been arrested at least 20 times. One quarter of the victims had been arrested at least 10 times. And about 40 percent of the suspects and victims had been busted for dealing drugs.
If 95% of the people getting murdered are actually criminals then taking guns away from them has a very good chance of increasing other types of crime. The sample size is pretty small here, but it would be interesting to know how many people killed by firearms (other than suicides) are in fact criminals.
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Words Twice – December 18, 2008
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