Crime Drop

Question 1

real driving force behind the obsession with crime control.?

Answer 1

• Ontological insecurity (“Unsicherheit”) is the real driving force behind the obsession with crime control.
• The insecurity intrinsic to modern life becomes reduced to fear about personal safety.

Question 2

• The spectacle of punishment (and prevention!) becomes more important than its actual effects.
• Why?

Answer 2

Because it comforts anxiety that has no real relation to actual safety.

• We like to say that we like freedom but in reality, most of us like being told what to do.

Question 3

• Crime rates have fallen sharply over the past ~20+ years in the U.S. and most other industrialized countries.

wHY are we resisting this good news? why are we resisting peace dividend (less money on defense, more on prevention/social benefits)?

Answer 3

d

Question 4

Why is there this big crime drop?

What are Farrell’s Five Tests?

Answer 4

• Some possible influences on the crime drop: incarceration, policing, shifting drug markets, improved security, demography, rising immigration, legal abortion, gun laws, childhood lead, etc.

Farrell’s Five Tests:
o	Preliminary evidence
o	Cross-nationality
o	Prior crime increase
o	Phone theft/e-crime
o	Varying trajectories

• The fine print: Farrell says that passing these tests is a necessary but NOT sufficient condition of their validity.
• Farrell likes the improved security hypothesis and perhaps too much so.

Question 5

what are the 4 Realities

Answer 5

Reality 1: everyone commits crimes of one kind or another, however, serious violent crime tends to be highly concentrated both demographically and geographically. “Networked” victims and offenders. Highly violent crimes are concentrated geographically in one place

Reality 2: marginalized people were at greater risk of victimization of crime but disproportionately lack protection resources (if white teenagers got killed in the hood with guns more often, we would probably have different gun rights)

Reality 3: a “peace dividend” that would shift resources to schools, health care, social programs, and so forth is politically hard to sell. people like scapegoats, something to hate against. saying let’s give kids education and resources while young is harder to sell than saying let’s lock away the scary people.

Reality 4: for better or for worse, legal and policy changes disproportionately impact marginalized people and communities. Whatever comes about with marijuana legal experimentation is gonna be felt more by people in rainier valley than mercer island. You need to think of policy effects ahead of time, have a safety net.