Why is the murder rate spiking in so many cities?

[suziedemocrat]

Orlando - "

In less than seven months, the city of about 215,000 reported 33 homicides, more than it's seen in any full year except one. It's only three shy of its 1982 record, on pace to have one of the 15 worst per-capita murder rates in the country."

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060722/NATION/607220370/1020

Indianapolis:

16 percent year-to-year increase in murders within the Indianapolis Police Department district.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/OPINION/607210308/-1/ZONES04


And others:

Rochester isn't alone: Violent crime sweeps nation

From Memphis to Hartford, the search is on for affordable, effective ways to stop the bloodshed

Patrick Flanigan
Staff writer

(July 16, 2006) — In Memphis, Tenn., a 13-year-old girl was shot to death after an adult got involved in a dispute between two groups of youths.

A surge in July homicides in Washington, D.C., triggered a redirection of police resources.

And in Hartford, Conn., a wave of shootings and the slaying of a young teenager has city leaders struggling to understand a population of young people who display no regard for human life.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060716/NEWS01/607160325/1002/NEWS

[leftofthedial]

1. fear, desperation, a growing underclass

the example set by the sociopath in the White House, revered constantly by the corporate media for being a murdering bully idiot.

[notadmblnd]

2. that and the fact that funding to police agencies have been cut

under the *bush administration. Remember, Clinton put an extra 100,000 officers on our cities streets.

[suziedemocrat]

7. I think this should be a campaign issue.

Things were just better when Clinton was in. Crime was way down. Even abortions were down.

[leftofthedial]

9. yeah, but Clinton got a blow job

all those kids who were traumatized by his lies and fornication are now adults without morals

that's why they commit crimes

If Clinton had been born without a penis, there would be no murders.

[girl gone mad]

35. Right.

The money to police neighborhoods has been diverted for homeland insecurity and Iraq contracts.

The increased gap between rich and poor, plus the widespread gentrification in many urban centers (at the expense of affordable housing) resulted in this predictable outcome.

[Deja Q]

14. And the corporate johns paying the political hos,

to allow the knackering of America to continue.

[napi21]

3. I wonder if it isn't connected to Srub's constant talk of WAR &

continued violence against his "enemies"?

I know the common belief in child rearing is that you shouldn't smack your kids becasue "violence teaches them to respond with violence". Don't you think seeing constant bombing on TV ust might be encouraging the behavior in our society?

[malaise]

12. That simple

Foreign policy comes home.

[madmusic]

15. This explains why violent crime plummeted steadily since 1972.

At the end of the Vietnam war.

The freakers complain about Hollywood, but the news is far more decadent. If only these people were watching a movie instead of killing or getting killed.

[donsu]

25. and the violent video/pc games the parents let them play

nt

[Phrogman]

52. You're right, killing is now accepted by the national attitude.

Murder and irresponsibility, the new world order comes home.

[RagingInMiami]

4. Haven't there been a lot of social programs cut since shrub took office?

Social programs that might have been able to make a difference in the lives of some of these murder suspects or victims?

I'm not saying that social programs will prevent all crimes and murders because some people are just born criminals.

But I believe there are many borderline cases where people fall into crime out of sheer necessity, hopelessness or peer pressure. These are the people who could be saved through certain preventive or educational programs.

Here in Miami we're going through a huge increase in juvenile murders. And they're mostly happening in poor black neighborhoods. We've seen this before. During the presidential administration of Poppy Bush.

[madmusic]

21. You have an evidence of that?

I'm not saying that social programs will prevent all crimes and murders because some people are just born criminals.

Please post the science link that proves it.

[RagingInMiami]

26. It's my own opinion formed from my own experience

If you have a link that proves otherwise, I would love to see it.

[madmusic]

29. Will a whole book do?

Creating Born Criminals:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/025206741X/104-7427507-9763127?v=glance&n=283155

[Swamp Rat]

49. No

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1044087

[madmusic]

55. What?

You based you opinion on a negative review and one that refutes your claim nonetheless:

"Both her history and her polemic would have been improved by incorporating the insight that criminals are 'created' environmentally, as well as defitionally."

First, she doesn't rely a "Foucauldian approach" that much and rarely mentions him (only 5 pages to be exact). Even if she did, that does not prove her theory wrong.

What's more, the reviewer says she doesn't go far enough. If you read some David Stack (the reviewer) he even argues that the Left used Social Darwinism to justify eugenics. So he is not disagreeing with "Creating Born Criminals" but is arguing it doesn't go far enough to refute the concept.

Back to Google you go. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madmusic]

57. I'll take that as a surrender.

And "social programs work better than prisons" is freepville?

Go post that over there and give us the link. Should be fun.

[Stargazer99]

36. Well, raging in Miami

what you are suggesting is rational. Seems like conservatives think killers, rapist and robbers just go off that that without any reason. It pays to lie, steal and cheat...the reality is the Republican party has members that are fine examples of such...and once in a while they get caught or someone finds out what their hiding like the example of Delay.

[benEzra]

62. Social services are dysfunctional in many areas...

including Florida, where we used to live. I'm sure the devastation caused by last year's hurricanes in the state didn't help, nor is the sagging economy.

[Joanne98]

5. Desperate people do desperate things........

Aside from that, the world is too crowded. If you cram people into small spaces they attack each other. But the fascists want more people for cheap labor and more customers. So expect this to continue. The fascists also want a global police state, so the more violence there is, the more the sheeple want to be SAFE, the more they give up their rights. It's a win, win, win situation for the fascists.

This movie start showing in American theatres July 28th....

http://www.freedomtofascism.com/

The Scariest Damn Film You'll See This Year"
AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM
"FOUR STARS (Highest Rating). The scariest damn film you'll see this year. It will leave you staggering out of the theatre, slack-jawed and trembling. Makes 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look like 'Bambi.' After watching this movie, your comfy, secure notions about America -- and about what it means to be an American -- will be forever shattered. Producer/director Aaron Russo and the folks at Cinema Libre Studio deserve to be heralded as heroes of a post-modern New American Revolution. This is shocking stuff. You'll be angry, you'll be disgusted, but you may actually break out in a cold sweat and feel a sickness deep in your gut; I would advise movie theatre managers to hand out vomit bags. You may end up needing one."
--- Todd David Schwartz, CBS

[DemsRBetterLovers]

6. global warming...

jesus its hot...you know people act a whole lot more agressive during hot spells.

[newyawker99]

23. Hi DemsRBetterLovers!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[acmavm]

8. My opinion (which is worth next to nothing) is because of the lack of

opportunity in this country, the bitterness of seeing the differences between the haves and have-nots, the very real situation that in a large segment of this society it's the 'gansta' drug dealing thug who has the nice car, the money, and the influence. The lack of educational opportunities. The glorification of killing NOT ONLY on the tube and the movie theatre but by our own government who has adopted the mantra that mass murder is all right if... (fill in the current bush** administration justification for Iraq). The families where two parents live in the home but are rarely there because they both have to work. The families where only one parent lives in the home but is also at work and who is struggling along on one income (two if that parent has more than one job) without help or reinforcement from anyone.

The unbelievable stress of this society on material gains and material goods, how your worth as a person can be judged on the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the neighborhood you live in.

The piss poor examples of what is considered to be 'class' now days. Everything from the trashiest by monied females that had to have crawled out from under a rock (Paris Hilton comes to mind) to the filth spewing idiots who think that monotony and garbage qualifies as 'music'. (Don't get me wrong, I don't hate all rap, just the stuff that qualifies more as crap.)

America has lost it's moral compass. The party in charge and is sending young kids to way has never seen a day of combat. There isn't a day that goes by that you don't hear or read of them being involved in a scandal that either involves sexual molestation, embezzlement, or some other type of crime.

Shit, I just depressed myself. Big time.

[lonestarnot]

13. Yes reality of these times is very fucking depressing. Very.

Try not to stay that way. It is disabling and another part of their game plan.

[malaise]

10. Perhaps citizens are just

following their government. Kill anyone in your way.

[ugarte]

11. Rich vs. the poor, a vanishing middle class...nt

[suziedemocrat]

17. The Gaurdian backs this up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1824587,00.html

William Chambliss, a sociology professor at George Washington University, notes that crime rates, in Washington as in other American cities, are cyclical. A few years of declining incidents will be followed by a few years of increased crime. But he believes Senitt's murder is a product of other forces. Over the past 25 years, as the gulf between rich and poor has widened, the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, in Washington have grown more acute.

A property boom has turned the city into the third most expensive in America - good news for homeowners, but a blow to the 19% of Washingtonians living below the poverty line. (The national rate is 13%.)

[me b zola]

43. It's cyclical alright

Increased poverty & subsequent increased crime as well cycle in with the republicans. When Dems are in power poverty and crime decrease.

But republicans bring more with them than just increased poverty and crime. They also bring division, an us v them mentality, and a sense of hopelessness.

[Tsiyu]

16. Trickle Down Morals

If the Pretzeldent doesn't have to obey the laws, neither do I.

If Halliburton can rob from soldiers, so can I.

If Pharm companies can gouge old ladies, so can I.

If prison guards can torture at will, so can I.

If our government says it's okay to murder for oil, it must be okay for me to murder for meth.

What's good for the Gubmint is good for the Regular Guy.....

[unpossibles]

18. all of the above

people are scared and desperate, and whether the greedocons like it or not social programs help all of us indirectly in so many ways.*

Add to that the cheapening of life as evidenced in all of the Neocon policies - including abortion in my opinion - and you get where we are: New Rome. And Nero is fiddling like a mad man.




* I actually had a couple of freepers claim that the reason stem cell funding should not be federally funded is because profit should be the sole driver of innovation. What a sad life. Sure, profit does and should play a part in it, but true innovation has always had much more behind it than that, and should not be limited to immediate monetary payoff.

Ironically, one of them had just gotten out of heart surgery recently - a procedure which I would bet has been researched using federal funding, in a hospital that also has received federal money. So essentially he would possibly be dead if it were not for the thing he is complaining about - using his tax money to try to save other people.

[Stargazer99]

38. If the freeper is religious

ask him/her what Christ said about worshipping mammon.

[unpossibles]

54. no - it's not a religious or moral objection

it's greed: they don't feel thier tax dollars should go toward research, and that innovation driven only by profit. I think that is sad. Where would we be without both innovation and the research which makes new things and ideas possible?

And even scarier, where will we be tomorrow if we are too afraid or too cheap to stay current with our scientific and medical research, and the rest of the world leaves us in the dust?

[Posteritatis]

60. Gotta love Randroids, no? (n/t)

[paparush]

19. Becase We The People are following the example set by our Govt...

[IsIt1984Yet]

20. Interesting editorial on homicide rates in Milwaukee and race

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=456688

According to a Medical College of Wisconsin report, the Wisconsin firearm homicide rate among black males in 2002 was 40 times higher than that for white males. The mortality rates were 48.2 and 1.2 per 100,000 individuals, respectively.

At that rate, over a 10- or 15- year period, every Wisconsin black male faces somewhere between 150- and 200-to-1 odds of being murdered with a firearm.

Growing up black in Milwaukee is somewhat more risky than a marine's tour of duty in Iraq.

[BlueStateGirl]

22. Philadelphia's is exploding as well. We had seven seperate

murders within 30 minutes one night last week. The police commissioner is begging for more cops. It is a mess. We are on pace to shatter our previos record year for homicides.

[MrSlayer]

45. Yeah it's been really crazy here.

Everyday there seem to be multiple homicides.

[donsu]

24. poverty and ignorance - few graduating from H.S. - causes anger

and a 'so what' attitude

a revolving prison population biggest in history

[RB TexLa]

27. It's summer, that's when people become more violent

[smoogatz]

31. Uh, it was summer a year ago, too.

Or did I miss something?

[RB TexLa]

37. There were murders then too

[smoogatz]

41. Right.

But not as many as this summer.

[RB TexLa]

44. What do you base that on?

In Louisiana we have around 600 murders a year, more come in the summer. I think the numbers hold over the years, I'd say it swings between 500 to 700 a year.

[smoogatz]

46. I read the original post, for starters--

and noticed this littel tidbit in one of the linked articles: "2005 FBI figures showed a 2.5 percent increase in violent crime nationwide -- the largest since 1991 -- and a 4.8 percent rise in murders." The implication of the OP is that for a number of cities, 2006 will be even more deadly than '05. So yes, murders do tend to spike in the summertime in some places. But nationwide, murders are trending up over previous years, so that's a bit more comlicated. Got it?

[RB TexLa]

48. yes, most said it would be close to or maybe surpass 1982

which was another very hot summer.


edited to remove "got it" no reason for me to smart off like a child does.

[smoogatz]

50. Okay, if what you're saying is true--

that the weather is the most important determinant of the murder rate--then the murder rate would increase every year at about the same rate as the global temperature rises. It hasn't. It went way down during the latter two-thirds of the 1990's, stayed low in the early '00s, and is now trending up again. Meanwhile global temperatures have been rising steadily since the late 1970s.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/08_1.shtml (see lower graph)

But hey, think what you want to think.

[RB TexLa]

51. one of the links in the OP talked about the July murder counts

where I am from summer comes, we start murdering one another, the hotter it is usually the more people are murdered.

Just because an area is on pace to do something 7 monthes into a year doesn't always mean they are on the same pace at the end of the year.

[area51]

28. republinazis

Every time a member of the republinazi party gets to ru(i)n the country, the economy goes in the shitter. This is what happens in a dying economy.

[Stargazer99]

40. My auntie told me in the 1950's

Don't vote Republican because they get you into wars and depressions....the wars are here with the common man dying and it is depression time for the middleclass and the poor. There is a pattern here.

[lebkuchen]

30. Richmond, CA's murder rate is nearly 5 times the national average

so it must have one of the highest murder rates in the country.

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Richmond&state=CA

[smoogatz]

32. Five big reasons:

1.Demographics: A big spike in the number of teenagers/young adults, born in the mid-late 80s "baby boomlet".
2.Budget cuts: Budgets have been cut in many states and localities across the board. "Quality of life" programs like community policing are among the first to go, but schools, job training programs, etc are also adversely affected.
3.No Child Left Behind: NCLB has had the perverse effect in many states (Texas a prime example) of pressuring schools to encourage failing students to drop out, thereby eliminating those students from the test-curve and raising average test scores. Problem is, those dropouts have no place to ge and little hope of earning a living.
4.Real wages in decline: While the rich get richer, the poor and lower-middle class are increasingly stressed.
5.Crystal meth: aka Hillbilly Crack; very, very bad shit that makes people crazy. Epidemic in many parts of the country.

[readmoreoften]

33. Gay Marriage.

I mean, duh.

[Mr_Spock]

34. I predicted this as the result of RW government

It is the expected result - the many reports of crime increasing in the cities don't surprise me.

Republicans are fond of seeing poor people desperate, angry and killing each other. It makes them happy by proving their "theories" :crazy:

I really dislike these people.

[SoCalDem]

39. lots of kids who drop out, have no jobs, no money, no hope?

just a guess?

[lovuian]

42. Poverty produces increase crime

remeber in Dickens time the crimeridden ghettos

[Fountain79]

47. Porn and Flag Burning n/t

[rman]

53. and video games...

:)

[Posteritatis]

61. Soon someone'll make a violent game involving porn *and* flagburning!

Ohhhhhhh, we'll be right fucked then! It'd be the hat trick of social doooooooooom! ;)

[sweetheart]

58. don't you just want to go out and murder somebody?

Emotional entangelment and guns mixed in the pot,
boiling in economic poverty, stressed to pay for a war
in which their kids are dying wasted lives,
where we stand for torture, denegration of all peoples,
regression of women and driving billions in to poverty
so we can drive big cars all alone on crowded freeways,
your best friend ends up being your car.

:-)

[sakabatou]

59. Budget cuts from Bush to law enforcement