Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 6:07:23 PM
How often has the Left blamed crime on poverty? In reality, the connection is more often the other away around - crime causes poverty. However, like several other recent reports over the last several years, this article by Joel Rubin and Richard Winton in the left-leaning Los Angeles Times reports…
Crime in Los Angeles County dropped again in 2009 despite rising unemployment and the bad economy, continuing a slide that has pushed homicides to levels not seen since the 1960s.
There's a lot of good news.
The number of property-related crimes, such as burglary and theft, also declined generally this year, including a surprisingly large drop in the number of stolen automobiles.
The trend extended into other parts of Southern California and several major cities around the country.
This isn't just a brief anomaly.
For the LAPD, the statistics marked the seventh consecutive year in which the rate of serious crimes has declined.
So what does this mean?
The overall progress made this year around the country further refuted a once widely accepted belief that crime rates rise amid economic downturns.
Criminologists have long puzzled over the effect the economy and society's ills have on crime rates.
Here's comes the beard-scratching...
One explanation suggests that layoffs have resulted in an increase in the number of people remaining at home and serving as "guardians" against crime in their neighborhoods, Kelling said.
And this is definitely a Lefty explanation…
Richard B. Rosenfeld, president of the American Society of Criminology, added that the federal government's decision to extend unemployment benefits may have staved off some crime.
But they do give some credit where it is really due.
Kelling and Rosenfeld emphasized that much of the credit for the extended decline in Los Angeles belongs to the LAPD, which has continued to refine crime-fighting strategies and strengthen ties with community groups in neighborhoods where it was once viewed with distrust and hostility.
The article never gets to one of the biggest reasons crime rates have declined: Three Strikes and similar sentencing. Being poor doesn't turn someone into a criminal. As it turns out, there is a small percentage of the population - and some of them are rich - who commit most of the violent crime and serious property crime. When you lock these people up, crime rates go down. Yes, good policing makes a difference. Yes, it is good for people to voluntary reach out and help others who are desperate. But let's not ignore the correlation between sentencing and crime rates.
While we're all sinners, very few of us lead a life of ongoing serious crime. It is a basic function of government to remove serious criminals from the rest of us. When we do lock career criminals up, we have significantly less crime. This is not magic.
One of the best things we can do for the people living in the more blighted areas is to attack the gangs in a "sweep and hold" situaton where the National Guard and ICE assist local law enforcement in disrupting the grip gangs have in these places.