The Force for change

Dawn or dusk in 2017? 

We’re told it’s been a terrible year.

Proof: The Force left Princess Leia! The death of the Princess, or rather Carrie Fisher’s passing four days ago, was one of many sad events in 2016 that might easily get lost in the cacophony of civil wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, political unrest, and environmental decline. 

With that backdrop our fictional Leia was a symbol of hope against evil and bedlam - just the kind of dystopian pap we’re fed by the popular media and the pundits who feed on it. The truth (uncomfortable as it is with simplistic drivel) is more nuanced, at least from a crime perspective. In fact, in much of the developed world, this year was unexceptional for crime. 

Except for an explosion of gang violence in Chicago, crime continued its decades-long decline. There was a slight uptick in a few cities this year (Boston had 46 murders this year compared to 40 last year), possibly a symptom of cartel-fuelled opiates and heroin on city streets. Still, most cities reported stable or lower crime rates.

MOST CRIME IS DOWN

New York City had 4% fewer homicides, putting the lie to the idea that crime is rising due to the Ferguson Effect. In fact, New York's 330 murders this year are pale compared to 2,260 in 1990.

NYPD anti-terror officers - the new reality of police departments in 2017

Murders in Montreal declined to 19 this year while (as in the US) a few Canadian cities did have slight crime blips. Yet on whole the 2016 crime story is uneventful. 

So what of the headline bedlam? Maybe it’s the global story that bleeds?

Nope. 

It is true that narco-crime continues to torture too many places, especially Central America. But consider the UN Millenium Development Project. Over the past decade project success is staggering: 

• People with access to better drinking water - up from 76% to 91%  
• New HIV infections - down 40%   
• Mortality rate from malaria - down 58% 
• People in poverty living on $1.25 a day - down from 50% to 14% 
• Undernourished people - down from 23% to 13%

Ill-informed politicians tout the mantra of gloom and social doom but they are not the brightest lightsabers in the galaxy. No doubt 2016 has seen tragedy, yet there are great things underway. With condolences to our beloved Princess, the Force of positive change is with us if we choose it. 

Here’s to 2017. Happy New Year! 

Uncovering the Great Murder Mystery

In 2010 Vanessa Barker published an intriguing study just released on the internet: Explaining the Great American Crime Decline.

I love this study.

Barker reviews three studies on the crime decline: Frank Zimring’s The Great American Crime Decline, a report by Goldberger and Rosenfield and a book by Wallman and Blumstein, The Crime Drop in America.

You might think the crime decline topic is old turf with explanatory paths we’ve walked many times: less street cocaine, bigger and fuller prisons, tougher policing, smarter policing, legal abortions.

Alas, says Barker, none of those standard stories emerge from the research intact.

INSIGHTS FROM URBAN ECOLOGY

Barker moves away from standard stories onto Insights from Urban Sociology. Crime theorists will recognize references to collective efficacy and neighborhood structure. For those unfamiliar with crime theory, SafeGrowth is a megamenu of these same insights. Probably why I love the study...duh!

The changing structure of downtowns and changing youth culture falls squarely into these insights. Such changes help build more cohesive neighborhoods, not in places like Ferguson but in enough places to make a difference.

These insights include social and environmental factors this blog has held front and center, like business associations, non-profits, schools, social services, cultural activities, transport systems, and housing. They include examples of collaborative commons and social cohesion.

THE IMMIGRATION BOMB

That’s when Barker drops the bomb! When she re-examined urban ecology studies on immigration she discovered how increasing immigration has helped reduce crime, not increase it!

“Sampson…suggests that increased immigration in the 1990s sparked urban renewal and economic growth in immigrant-dense neighborhoods like Queens and Bushwick in New York, the West Side in Chicago, South Central Los Angeles, and cities like Miami. The influx of immigrants corresponded with increases in income and decreases in poverty.”

THE NATTERING NUMPTIES

I’d love to see that debate in elections now underway in Canada, and next year in the U.S. Sadly what we get instead is hollow sound-bite nuggets from a bunch of nattering numpties.

Case in point: Last week the NDP party in Canada proposed to hire 2,500 more cops. They want to cut crime on Canadian streets…streets where most crime is still declining!

Pockets of Crime expands urban ecology theory -
collective action by residents can turn the tide,
but only when physical conditions are right

INFINITE MONKEY THEOREM

Sadly the standard stories persist, lately in the theory that crime declines resulted from increased security worldwide (in technical terms, guardianship). And we are served up a buffet of advanced statistical techniques that hit and peck at data in shiny, new datasets.

It’s a kind of infinite monkey theorem for big crime data. Remember the theory that predicted the monkey who hits and pecks keyboard keys for infinity will almost surely end up creating Hamlet.

I say leave the monkey alone! Barker and colleagues are onto something, something we’ve known for a long time.

The Great American Crime Decline?

Toronto or...
New York...Who's got crime?

Whenever the political prophets talk crime and peddle propaganda to solve it on their nightly TV holler-fests, I feel parched for truth on a media so devoid of it. As a criminologist I know what passes for truth about crime on TV is but a mirage.

Then I heard some truth about the mystifying urban crime declines of the 1990s. The words came from Professor Franklin E. Zimring whom I briefly met at an Alberta crime prevention conference last year.

If you have never read the work of Zimring, do so! Read his book The Great American Crime Decline. Zimring is meticulous showing how the crime declines throughout the 1990s were not only sustained and real; they were unprecedented in the 20th Century. click for Zimring's book

Previously on this blog I have described academic research called ROTO: Research-On-The-Obvious. read the ROTO entry

Zimring’s research is not ROTO. It is methodical, cautious and does not overstate.

His last chapter talks about lessons learned from the decline years. With the recession upon us and rates inching upwards, perhaps it is time to revisit his conclusions? Crime Decline conclusions

As with many truths, solutions are not simple. Zimring says no single cause can be attributed to the crime declines, not even the criminal justice system fixes - more cops, more 3 strikes laws, and more prisons. He concludes American crime studies missed the boat. They failed to look outside the borders. Hence they missed the fact that US declines almost perfectly echo those in Canada where there were no US-style fixes – no more cops, no more prisons, and no 3 strikes laws! Yet the declines happened anyway.

While there is no single cause of the good news, there are probably multiple causes of it. According to Zimring the glad tidings for crime control start with an improving economy and reductions in the number of young males in the so-called “crime-prone years” (15-29). Coinciding with these trends (though Zimring glosses over this) I would add police practices in both countries shifted toward the COPS philosophy: community-based, problem-oriented policing.

COPS emphasizes problem-solving crime hotspots in partnership with residents. Studies report success with COPS projects, the most notable being the Goldstein Problem-Solving Awards and the annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference. visit POP Center website

Do we get a simple bottom line? Not by Zimring standards. But there are some truths to remember. Here are three:
1) Professional observers of crime completely missed prophesizing the 1990s declines. They simply didn’t know it was coming.
2) Crime theorists still try to convince us their explanations work, when Zimring shows us they don’t.
3) Political and media pundits continue to pontificate, convincing me to turn off night-time TV.

It suggests, at least to me, that we cannot rely on politicians and experts to solve our crime problems for us – they simply don’t know what to do.

It suggests that crime is not an inevitable factor in any neighborhood or at any time. Crime does not require massive changes to our social structure to reduce it. It suggests we don’t yet know enough about social policy to know what government policy works best to reduce crime.

Mostly it suggests we need to go with what we know works: small scale, neighborhood efforts where we see actual improvements; COPS style policing in collaborations with residents; working within neighborhoods and with enlightened residents who collaborate with knowledgeable service providers.