Thursday, October 18, 2012

It's the economy stupid.


Crime is up!  what the hell happened? It's the economy stupid!

The one thing that the sociology mind set of academic professionals never seme to get their heads wrapped around (other than taxing the evil rich is a road map to economic disaster and failure) is that the economy drives crime rates. So, there is no big surprise (or there shouldn't be) when the economy goes in the tank and stays in the tank and in turn the crime rates begin to rise and ultimately they soar.

The reports now coming in aren't about a sudden rise in crime, they are about the sudden surge in crime. Crime has been rising the past four years, just not at the dramatic rate we are seeing now. And when the crime rate reverses, it will reverse for the same reasons and with a similar time frame of reduction.
Violent crimes unexpectedly jumped 18 percent last year, the first rise in nearly 20 years, and property crimes rose for first time in a decade. But academic experts said the new government data fall short of signaling a reversal of the long decline in crime.
The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Wednesday that the increase in the number of violent crimes was the result of an upward swing in simple assaults, which rose 22 percent, from 4 million in 2010 to 5 million last year. The incidence of rape, sexual assault and robbery remained largely unchanged, as did serious violent crime involving weapons or injury.
Property crimes were up 11 percent in 2011, from 15.4 million in 2010 to 17 million, according to the bureau's annual national crime victimization survey. Household burglaries rose 14 percent, from 3.2 million to 3.6 million. The number of thefts jumped by 10 percent, from 11.6 million to 12.8 million.
The statistics bureau said the percentage increases last year were so large primarily because the 2011 crime totals were compared to historically low levels of crime in 2010. Violent crime has fallen by 65 percent since 1993, from 16.8 million to 5.8 million last year.

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