[twoblink]

As I read more and more articles; I'm starting to feel that the "quality" of crimes have gone from "crimes" to what I call "general thugging".

Anybody else feel this way? This concerns me, as past crimes have been more like white collar or major crimes (like murders etc..) but now it's muggings and street thugging. While murders are generally harder to protect against as quite a bit of them are from people you know (angry spouses, jealous lovers etc..) thuggings and muggings are quite preventable with a firearm..

Even your kidnapping..

Article yesterday in the newspaper.. A man and his son were kidnapped, and a ransom demanded of his wife, who is a hair dresser who makes minimum wage.. The ransom amount? $700. :rolleyes: Like I said, it seems quality of criminals have just gone down the drain.. We went from Al Capone to kidnapping for $700... That's $350 per person kidnapped.. Someone missed the class when they were teaching about kidnapping for a higher ransom than McDonald's wages..:rolleyes:

[romulus]

An old friend of mine, who had been a prosecutor down in Tyler, TX (his mantra was "nah-nee nah'n yeahs, yoh honnuh") explained that since the 80s there's been no such thing as a crime wave. We've been suffering, rather, from what he termed a "nerd wave..."

[twoblink]

The stupidization of America applies to criminals as well..

[iapetus]

I heard a theory about why you get so many crims being repeatedly caught.


It's 'cos they're too stupid to hold down an honest job, so they turn to crime.

But they're too stupid to be effective criminals either, so they just keep getting caught.

[El Tejon]

"You're not a very good criminal. Why don't you try something else."

Hon. Katherine Smith, Judge, Clinton Superior Court I, Frankfort, Indiana.

[Andrew Rothman]

As I read more and more articles...

Well, there's the problem. News articles are not a cross-section of crime -- they are what the editors think that the readers will find interesting.

Crimes of stupidity are always good for a laugh.

On a more serious note, I think we like them because they reasssure us that criminals aren't really smart enough to hurt us.

If you want to see what's going on in the world of crime, go here: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

In the USA in 2002, there were 16,204 murders, 95,136 forcible rapes, 420,637 robberies, 894,348 aggravated assaults, 1,246,096 car thefts, 2,151,875 burglaries and 7,052,922 other thefts.

And that's down a lot from 10-12 years ago.

Here are a couple of charts I threw together from the FBI data:
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=712777

[romulus]

Hmmm...I see a correlation between Republican administrations and crime rate. Where's the causality?

[clubsoda22]

Hmmm...I see a correlation between Republican administrations and crime rate. Where's the causality?

It's all the economy. The economy was good and there was low unemployment under clinton (not that he had much to do with it), hence, the steadily dropping crime rate. Now that unemployment is back at a high, crime is on the rise again.

[ravinraven]

Several years ago, a friend of mine would check on a house a fairly well-know artist lived in. He was gone for months at a time.

One day, my buddy noted that a door had been smashed and the place had been robbed. He called the artist and told him the bad news.

"Somebody broke into your house and you've been burgled."

"Oh, no! The Monet!" He had an original Monet on the wall that was worth more than this town.

"Not to worry. They stole that eight-track stereo you bought from the drug store. The Monet is still there."

Lesson: When breaking and entering, do not grab a $50 stereo if there's a million buck painting hanging on the wall. 'Course, you can't listen to a painting.

I do believe that the theft rate is declining because everything has been stolen that's worth anything.

rr

[TallPine]

All of the smart criminals are in government.

[Andrew Rothman]

Bad economy --> more crime.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=713080

[Car Knocker]

Caught part of a news story the other day about a bank robber who wrote his holdup note on the back of his personal check. Police have a strong lead on a suspect.