August 23, 2013

How rare is crime?

The liberal orthodoxy on the costs of crime victimization tend to be a weird combination of Eloi / macho: crime is rare, so man up and don't worry about it.

Yet, Ross Douthat pointed yesterday to a 1987 Bureau of Justice Statistics study estimating that 83% of Americans are subject to at least one violent crime over their lifetimes. But, since some people are subject to more than one crime, the expected average per Americans was closer to two violent crimes per lifetime.

A commenter notes that it's reasonable for people to include their loved ones being subject to violent crimes as well. 

So, let's use a stylized family tree to estimate the number of expected crimes committed against relatives by blood and marriage. Assume everybody in America gets married once and has two children. Thus, each person would have two parents, one sibling, one spouse, and two children. Counting yourself and your six first order relations, that would be an expected average of 14 violent crimes per lifetime committed against you and your closest relations.

A few caveats

Some of those violent crimes will be domestic. You, personally, might beat up your spouse, for example. On the other hand, society has put strong efforts into punishing and deterring domestic violence, with sizable gains, so domestic crime should hardly be wholly discounted.

Second, some of those crimes will happen before your birth or after your death, but that hardly means you feel all that great about that.

How many more relative do you have in this stylized schema:

4 grandparents -- 8 victimizations
4 grandchildren -- 8 victimization
2 nephews-nieces -- 4 victimizations
2 first cousins -- 4 victimizations
2 parents-in-law -- 4 victimizations
1 sibling-in-law -- 2 victimization
2 nephews/nieces-in-law -- 4 victimizations
1 spouse-in-law's spouse (e.g., your wife's sister's husband) -- 2 victimization

So, that's 36 more violent victimizations, along with the 14 of your inner circle, for a total of 50. And you can keep going onward from there. And then there are your friends.

No man is an island.

57 comments:

  1. "The liberal orthodoxy on the costs of crime victimization tend to be a weird combination of Eloi / macho: crime is rare, so man up and don't worry about it."


    Except for women and rape, in which case every woman in all conditions are is danger.

    AKAHorace

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  2. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/simon-leys-man-who-got-it-right/?pagination=false


    Really fine essay. What Buruma says about the self-deception among Western intellectuals on the subject of Maoist China applies to the likes of O'Hehir and Beutler who spin lies about black crime and violence.
    Western intellectuals, especially in France, were so in love with the IDEA of revolutionary leftist China that they refused to see the barbarism.
    White liberals are so infatuated with black coolness and MLK myth that they cannot see the real pathological failings of the black community. They just blame everything on the 'right'.

    Other interestsing essays:

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/oppenheimer-shape-genius/?pagination=false

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/forgery-art-phony/?pagination=false





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  3. It would depend tremendously on location and socioeconomic factors. If you and most of your relatives live in rural or small-town Iowa, the chances are much lower; if you're in the Baltimore ghetto, they're much higher.

    Peter

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  4. There's a bit of double counting here since some of the individual violent crimes will involve multiple family members (e.g. home invasions).

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  5. It's perfectly reasonable to count victimizations per victim.

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  6. "Crime is rare...don't worry about it"

    "Because we don't want you to notice who's doing it."

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  7. Except for women and rape, in which case every woman in all conditions are is danger.

    It's truer than you might think. It's not just attractive women in their teens or twenties. And it's not something to dismiss either. Every male conservative has female relations, this is not just a liberal issue.

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  8. Are some of these crimes fights among teenagers? Most of these aren't even reported.

    Steve, what violent crimes have your family and wife's family been victims of?

    What about your father and mother?


    Are some drunk driving accidents?

    Stay out of bars and night clubs and you'll be safer. Seems like these places create trouble.

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  9. "weird combination of Eloi / macho: crime is rare, so man up and don't worry about it."..

    That's part of it, for sure.

    Also:

    There's the usual - we can avoid it by living in our (dont call us priveledged) encalves. What's wrong with you?

    There's the presumption that admitting the numbers will cause pogroms of some sort. Don't make me explain this you Nazi.

    There's - check me out, how indignant am I? (Please do notice..)

    etc...



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  10. Another interesting juxtaposition by liberals re: crime - avoiding black male youth is ridiculous because there is as very small statistical chance any one individual black male is a criminal / ::wail:: X% of black males are in prison, on parole, etc. or my favorite "a black male has a better chance of going to jail than college" etc.

    -SonOfStrom

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  11. Anonymous #2

    thanks for the link to the Simon Leys essay.

    I don't know what happened in the states, but for some really frightening reading look at what was published about China in Canada and the UK in the early 70s.

    Trudeau was one of the worst for this.

    AKAHorace

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  12. "so infatuated with black coolness and MLK myth that they cannot see the real pathological failings of the black community. "

    The pathological failings 'are' the coolness.

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  13. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/23/national/was-fellers-friend-of-japan-or-master-manipulator/#.UhhF-dK-r7Q

    Jolly good feller?

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  14. man up and don't worry about it

    Man up, take it up the ass, and don't defend yourself or your family.

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  15. I got mugged a few years ago. I immediately went home and watched every Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movie ever made. Then when the gun store opened up on Monday morning ...

    Well, let's just say I'd like to see those punks try that stuff again!

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  16. Crime stats don't BEGIN to tell the true story.

    I was jumped by a gang of Bloods in Brooklyn and reported it to two police officers stationed uselessly at the subway who told me not to bother filing any paperwork as it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

    This happens All The Time.

    Maybe times fifty for black victims of black crime who won't even attempt to report the crime.

    And can anyone even guesstimate how many homicides in super-black ghettos (where a half-breed wouldn't show his face) never show up in any official statistics as murder at all?

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  17. "Anonymous said...

    It's truer than you might think. It's not just attractive women in their teens or twenties. And it's not something to dismiss either. Every male conservative has female relations, this is not just a liberal issue."

    Correction - it is ONLY a conservative issue, as liberals obviously don't really care about women getting raped. Consider all those "take back the night" marches, which tried to convince white college co-eds that they were equally in danger of being raped by a white engineering student as by a black football player, or by some black non-student who just hung around campus.

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  18. Every time an honest man has to lock his door, a crime has been committed.

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  19. Steve, you're not factoring in those family members who would have been attacked if they had been allowed to come into being.

    It was a clear blue sunny Sunday afternoon in 1959, and my white mother was sitting on a park bench in New Jersey reading a book when a black man walked up and sunk a knife into her belly. She ran and screamed, nobody helped. She lost half the blood in her body and nearly died. Detectives visited her twice in the hospital and each time asked whether the black man had said anything about killing a white person to join a "club".

    Complications from the blood transfusion meant that when she wanted to have children she was able to have only one, which is why I was denied the chance to have brothers and sisters.

    Violent black on white crime has been around for too long and probably isn't going away. Building more prisons, putting these animals away for life, making them pay their own cost to society through forced labor, is the right thing to do. Because hate is not a family value.

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  20. No one actually believes that crime is rare. It's a status symbol, that you and yours move in such rarified circles that you don't have to worry about it.

    Worrying about crime, publically, sends a signal that you can't afford the "nice" (ie, white) neighbourhoods with the "nice" (ie, white) schools, that you work in jobs with high proportions of non cherry picked coloured people (ick!) and can't avoid the dangerous areas. You might even - *clutches pearls* - use public transport. Or, at the very least, it shows an unseemly level of identification with people in those situations.

    It's the same way that publically worrying about, say, affirmative action signals that you're just some lowlife who can't even compete with coloured people. Watch what people do. People are terrified.

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  21. I wonder if Brian Beutler and his friend Matt have navigated Euclid late at night since their rare, rare encounter with Richard Cohen's sweatiest nightmare. Something tells me he's made some adjustments to his routine, despite his "it was only a flesh wound" nonchalance.

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  22. The odds are in one's favor that nothing will happen should one decide to play Russian Roulette. But is it wise?

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  23. FOR THE UMPTEEN BAZILLIONTH TIME, DADGUMMIT:

    Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate
    Roger Dobson
    BMJ 2002;325:615 (21 September)
    bmj.com
    ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

    ...Without this technology, we estimate there would be no less than 50,000 and as many as 115,000 homicides annually instead of an actual 15,000 to 20,000...

    The aggravated assault rate was, by 1997, almost 750% higher than the baseline figure. The team also described the dramatic overall decrease in trauma mortality in the second half of the 20th century...

    The period of greatest change came between 1972 and 1977, on the heels of the US involvement in the Vietnam war, which triggered big advances in trauma care...

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  24. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114223/margaret-thatcher-reviewed-john-gray

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  25. The victimization rates discussed here are averages over the whole population. We all know that incident rates differ by group. For example in 2011, 20 whites were murdered in Chicago as compared to about 320 blacks. There are more whites than blacks in Chicago. If all violent crime follows the trend we see in murders, blacks are about 20x to 30x more likely to be victimized. This is just slapdash ball park estimating, but I would guess that Sailer's estimates of crime victimization are about 5x too high for whites and about 20x too high for affluent whites (top 5%). They are also far too low for blacks, whose rates of victimization are sky high, likely even 2x to 3x higher than the rates Sailer's estimates suggest. I mean, how can they endure it? Also, when they complain of stuff whites do, like discriminate or exclude them, or say something rude or insensitive, you think, how is it that they don't mind so much the sticks and stones which break their bones but words can always hurt them?

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  26. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356527/subtlest-racism-charles-c-w-cooke

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356529/how-oberlin-created-hate-crime-year-michelle-malkin

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  27. "The liberal orthodoxy on the costs of crime victimization tend to be a weird combination of Eloi / macho: crime is rare, so man up and don't worry about it."

    Well, libs never say gun crime is rare but they seem to think the biggest danger to us crimewise are rural guys named Jim or Bob who have a cabinet full of guns. Never know when they'll get tired of shooting ducks and coke guns and turn their muzzles on something else ya know.

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  28. I've been mugged twice, once in Brooklyn in the 70's and once in Manhattan in the 80's. Then came debit cards so I stopped carrying cash which made mugging less profitable. There has been it appears an upswing due to cell phones being robbable, but at some point there will be nothing left to rob people of by mugging. Then what?

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  29. http://www.theguardian.com/life/news/page/0,12983,1290764,00.html

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  30. The liberal orthodoxy on the costs of crime victimization tend to be a weird combination of Eloi / macho: crime is rare, so man up and don't worry about it.

    Lol, everything about liberalism is like that: kitchen-sink sociopathic propaganda.

    No man is an island.

    Until libs decide that's the way to tailor their propaganda, and tell him he is.

    Except for women and rape, in which case every woman in all conditions are is danger.

    But not enough danger to justify women carrying guns to defend themselves from rapists.

    White liberals are so infatuated with black coolness and MLK myth that they cannot see the real pathological failings of the black community. They just blame everything on the 'right'.

    They have to choose between reality and liberalism and its delusion of group equality.

    Another interesting juxtaposition by liberals re: crime - avoiding black male youth is ridiculous because there is as very small statistical chance any one individual black male is a criminal / ::wail:: X% of black males are in prison, on parole, etc. or my favorite "a black male has a better chance of going to jail than college" etc.

    Right. Like I said, there's a whole book waiting to be filled with this stuff. When viewed as a whole, liberalism makes no sense at all, at least, not in any non-sociopathic kind of way.

    Pattern recognition seems to be the very antithesis of liberalism. Not only must one not notice patterns in human behavior, one must not notice patterns, period. No connecting any dots on one's own is allowed.

    I got mugged a few years ago. I immediately went home and watched every Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movie ever made. Then when the gun store opened up on Monday morning ...

    Well, let's just say I'd like to see those punks try that stuff again!


    Seen Dredd yet?

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  31. Boil it down and you get Enlightenment vs. Totalitarianism. Soft totalitarianism that exists mostly in the mind, but totalitarianism nonetheless.

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  32. Robert Hansen8/24/13, 9:49 AM

    In the noise of the general celebration, one black youth got behind me unawares, the other sucker popped me so hard I barely touched his partner on the way over the top.

    Woke up the next morning in a hospital bed and had to be told what happened. It was all over YouTube, so I could see it for myself.

    If not for the wires in my jaw, I might think about being a stuntman. For about half a second.

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  33. First time I've heard the phrase "Transgender Americans" used:

    http://news.yahoo.com/transgender-americans-bradley-manning-isn-t-only-one-141048856.html

    "Transgender Americans: Bradley Manning isn’t the only one"

    "The case of Army Pvt. Bradley Manning has brought new focus to transgender issues in the US, seen by some as the next major civil rights movement. One question in particular is how to deal with transgender children in schools."

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  34. Clash sang "I'm so bored with the USA".

    We need a song "I'm so bored with the KKK(sighting)".

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  35. From showboating to showvoting.

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  36. Of course, a lot of crime are not reported. I was held up at gunpoint once but didn't report it. The punks ran away and I didn't wanna spend the night filing a police report at the station with bored clerks.

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  37. And most school bullying are never reported. That one white kid on the school bus in Florida found out what happens when you 'snitch'.

    We need the concept of 'racial rights'. Every race has the right to live safely apart from other races that do it harm.

    As for why Obama gave a speech about Martin, it was made into a big issue by black agitators. Unless there is a white rights movement and white interest leaders, why victimization will just be local news.

    The American Revolution didn't just happen. It had to be agitated FOR by a group of organized men.
    Similarly, if we want leaders to address our concerns, we have to pressure them and force the issue into the limelight.
    It's like until blacks began to organize and march, most of white American overlooked the segregation and discrimination.

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  38. The problem of black psychopathy isn't only the violence.
    Much of black psychopathy is non-violent. It's the readiness to lie, steal, cheat, and not only feel no remorse but feel justified along the line of 'white folks be racist' and 'I'm so hip and cool, I got away with it'.

    We focus on black crime and violence since their impact is most dramatic, but cities like Detroit were destroyed not only by violent crime but silent crime of stealing, lying, cheating, hustling, fustling, gustling, justling, and whatever else other kind of ustling. Look at the school exam cheating in Atlanta and the total lack of remorse.

    Blacks are the most unreflective of the races.

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  39. FOR THE UMPTEEN BAZILLIONTH TIME, DADGUMMIT:

    Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate


    Yeah but according to some bloggers there are fewer violent movies now than there were in the 80s and dance outfit designs are different so we know for sure that violent crime has fallen.

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  40. First time I've heard the phrase "Transgender Americans" used:


    It's interesting: originally I didn't think that would be the next big issue after gay marriage, because I figured the sexual-deviancy lobby had had its turn, so some other group would get to go next.

    I should have remember what Steve has taught us: it's not about the "victim" group; it's about how that group can be used by elite liberals to feel superior to middle-American whites and compete with each other in the holier-liberal-than-thou stakes. By those standards, this issue is perfect. It's not even really a different issue from "gay marriage," but just taking it to the next extreme. Now that you can't be any more pro-gay than any other liberal, can you still score points by being more pro-tranny?

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  41. odds of violent crime and odds of car accident8/24/13, 12:30 PM

    I think the easiest thing to compare risk to (for most Americans) is driving. Overall, driving/riding in a car is a safe prospect. But, it also likely that you'll be involved in more than one accident in your life. Because of the infrequent, but rea possibility of colliding with another vehicle of object, we are OK with hassles like speed traps and DUI checkpoints. We also factor in our decisions when and where we drive based on relative safety. Your odds of being involved in an accident at a tricky intersection near the bar district, late night on New Year's Eve are probably not very high in absolute terms. But compared to other times and places, they are much higher. Are we irrational for avoiding these driving situations and or allowing for DUI checkpoints?

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  42. A few rambling thoughts...

    1) Crime statistics must be treated with caution. Much crime is never reported. Rape being a prime example.

    2) The 'decline' in the murder rate doesn't automatically mean a drop in violent crime. As one poster noted, medical technology has improved a lot over the years and this has 'prevented' many murders. Accessibility of cellphones and paramedics has undoubtedly also helped. The true measure would be to combine the murder and attempted murder rates and then do a comparison.

    3) Completely agree with the anonymous poster at 11:34 AM about the destruction of Detroit by black actions not being just about violence. Rather the whole civic culture values of blacks or rather lack of, was more to blame. I once worked with a group of blacks at a large corporation. It was one of the most unrewarding experiences of my life. There was a lot of hostility and some 'in your face' actions, but it was just the general surliness, lack of professionalism and low-level passive-aggressive behavior that really made things so distasteful. I got out of that department, the most inefficient I ever saw, as soon as I could.

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  43. "I was jumped by a gang of Bloods in Brooklyn and reported it to two police officers stationed uselessly at the subway who told me not to bother filing any paperwork as it wouldn't make any difference anyway."

    I had a black try to rob me by threatening that he had a knife and the police showed up and let the guy go doing nothing. This is in NYC. Had another similar incident where police were hostile to me when I tried to file a report. I know of many other incidents like this in NYC in recent years. Everyone who lives here knows that the crime statistics are false and being manipulated to make his royal highness look good.

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  44. Boil it down and you get Enlightenment vs. Totalitarianism. Soft totalitarianism that exists mostly in the mind, but totalitarianism nonetheless.

    Middle school anarcho-tyranny.

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  45. "Except for women and rape, in which case every woman in all conditions are is danger. " - Who, Whom after all.

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  46. "odds of violent crime and odds of car accident said...

    Because of the infrequent, but real possibility of colliding with another vehicle of object, we are OK with hassles like speed traps and DUI checkpoints."

    I'm not okay with DUI checkpoints - they are a pretty clear violation of the 4th amendment. And, as far as I know, there is no evidence that they make the roads safer anymore than TSA crotch-fondling makes air-travel safer.

    As to your other points, I agree with them.

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  47. Don’t Ignore Race in Christopher Lane’s Murder

    The association of young black men with violence doesn't come out of thin air
    By John McWhorter

    http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/22/viewpoint-dont-ignore-race-in-christopher-lanes-murder/

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  48. "Had another similar incident where police were hostile to me when I tried to file a report. I know of many other incidents like this in NYC in recent years"

    The same thing was probably happening in the 70s and 80s too, and for all you know it may have even been worse back then. Think about it.

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  49. More reality on race from news.com.au? Or is Murdoch just trying to push Australia into voting Liberal? It's hard to tell.


    Night Rider Bus

    A woman was attacked on a NightRider bus this morning.

    A WOMAN was beaten unconscious after she complained about a "boisterous" gang on the NightRider bus in the early hours of this morning.

    The 26-year-old asked the driver to remove the group who were standing in the aisle being noisy and knocking into passengers.

    ...

    The savage gang was made up of six or seven men and two women.

    ...

    Transit Crime Investigation Unit detectives are investigating the serious assault and hope to identify the offenders, who are believed to be of African appearance, from CCTV.



    Emphasis mine, lol.

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  50. “We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the cost of prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.” – Edmund Burke On the Revolution in France

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  51. "Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate"

    Except that the rate for EVERY sort of crime has dropped, since the Regan administration, as well. Do medical advances mask the car theft rate as well?

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  52. check out the Wikipedia article on "pedigree collapse". It's a decent intro.

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  53. ""Except for women and rape, in which case every woman in all conditions are is danger.""

    "It's truer than you might think. It's not just attractive women in their teens or twenties. And it's not something to dismiss either. Every male conservative has female relations, this is not just a liberal issue."


    There is some truth to what you say. I think that if you are a man there may be a lot that you don't know of what goes on around you because women only talk about these things among themselves.

    It is the attitude of treating every man as a potential rapist but not noticing the higher risk of being shot or robbed by certain minorities that annoys me.

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  54. "Except that the rate for EVERY sort of crime has dropped, since the Regan administration, as well. Do medical advances mask the car theft rate as well?"

    Well that's the million dollar question. If the medical records show violent crime going up then how come?

    Anecdotally i'd say the white crime rate is down due to aging and having fewer young men while the black crime rate is significantly worse masked by higher incarceration and frigged crime stats.

    However unravelling the net effect of all the up and down factors is beyond me.

    As the man said

    "Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate"

    something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

    nb the need to frig crime stats is proportional to the level, direction and political sensitivity of the crime itself. If it's low, heading down and non-sensitive then there's no need to frig the stats. If it's high, going up and sensitive then there is.

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  55. My family list

    Back where we used to live the entire extended family apart from me mugged at least once. Lots of minor violent attacks - like dozens - and a few serious ones. Lots of car and house break-ins. That was over say ten years.

    In the thirty years since we were cleansed out of that neighborhood i think it's been one burglary between all of us.

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  56. "Truth said...

    ""Medical advances mask epidemic of violence by cutting murder rate""

    Except that the rate for EVERY sort of crime has dropped, since the Regan administration, as well. Do medical advances mask the car theft rate as well?"

    No, but better anti-theft devices, and an increasingly bureacratic society which makes it ever more difficult to dispose of a hot car might reduce the incidence of car theft.

    But none of us ever thought that you would be able to entertain two different thoughts in your head at once. There can only ever be one explanation for any phenomenon, right?

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