NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/culture/british/16154

Text File | 1992-11-19 | 3.2 KB | 59 lines

Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!cthorne
From: [e-mail] (Charles E Thorne)
Subject: Re: Crime rates in Britain compared
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Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 21:15:21 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Richard Pinch) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Charles E Thorne) writes:

>>From a local point of view, I can suggest that the violence and lawlessness
>>in the U.S. cities is largely due to the large number of urban poor who live
>>in the cities.  Unlike many cities around the world, the U.S. cities have a
>>relatively large amount of money on the streets, and thus lawlessness has its
>>benefits (to the lawless).

>I don't think that can be the only reason.  I have been perfectly safe
>walking around downtown Cairo late at night, an obvious tourist, clearly
>likely to be carrying a cash sum equivalent to several years income for
>the average Egyptian.  Can you imagine what would happen to someone who
>was clearly carrying several tens of thousands of dollars cash in the
>middle of the night in downtown New York?  Or central London?

I didn't expect my response to be a totally complete answer to all crime
and violence.  The original posting I responded to was comparing crime in
the U.S. vs. crime in Britain.  Two issues I mentioned were that the large
number of urban poor (who are the primary residents of major U.S. cities)
are a factor.  The fact that there are large amounts of money available in
the cities is an attraction to a lawless group of people.

Another factor, which I didn't dwell on, is that the U.S. has an official
aversion to outlawing weapons or giving police forces unlimited authority
to counter crime.  We have a basic concept (although not always realized
in a form everyone to agree to) that we believe in a fairly laissez-faire
community (both politically and socially) and the police forces can counter
this only with substantial proof that they're correct when they interfere.

I'm not sure about the relative population patterns in European countries
but in the U.S. in the last 1/2 century people who don't need to live in
the central cities don't.  People who can't afford to move out, or who
otherwise enjoy the city life are the major ones who live there.  Most of
the rising population prefers suburbs or small towns.

There is also an underlying anger among the poor which I think is a factor
in the crime issues.  We still have over 10% of our population who lack many
of the benefits of the "good life", and many of them are resentful of that
fact.  Many of the urban crime perpetrators are those who feel there is no
other way for them to have "their share" of what others seem to have.  There
could of course be a large number of "professional" criminals, but I doubt if
this is a major factor in urban crime.

Charlie