There is no society, just homicidal individuals
There’s a new book out, American Homicide, which has some interesting arguments:
He concluded that people’s views about the legitimacy of government and how much they identify with their fellow citizens play a major role in how often they kill each other — much more so than the usual theories revolving around guns, poverty, drugs, race, or a permissive justice system.“The predisposition to murder is rooted in feelings and beliefs people have toward government and their fellow citizens,” said Randolph Roth, author of the book and professor of history at Ohio State.
…
That includes theories held dear by both conservatives and liberals. If you look at the evidence over time, poverty and unemployment don’t lead to higher murder rates, as many liberals argue, he said. But locking up criminals, using the death penalty, and adding more police don’t hold the murder rate down either, as conservatives claim.
…
In his analysis, Roth found four factors that relate to the homicide rate in parts of the United States and western Europe throughout the past four centuries: the belief that one’s government is stable and its justice and legal systems are unbiased and effective; a feeling of trust in government officials and a belief in their legitimacy; a sense of patriotism and solidarity with fellow citizens; and a belief that one’s position is society is satisfactory and that one can command respect without resorting to violence.
When those feelings and beliefs are strong, homicide rates are generally low, regardless of the time or place, Roth said. But when people are unsure about their government leaders, don’t feel connected to the rest of society, and feel they don’t have opportunity to command respect in the community, homicide rates go up.
The main issue I have with the explanations for crime variance out there is that the 1960s spike and the 1990s abatement were synchronous internationally. So I’m skeptical of policy changes being the ultimate cause of these cycles.
Labels: crime
I find your last comment interesting Razib, couldn’t the spike and abatement in violence be explained by the factors outlined by Roth? I mean, the 60′s was the time of the counterculture revolution, where a whole generation of young people was trying to stick it to man (i.e. the government). It was an international phenomenon as well, given a baby boom occurred in many countries after WWII. By the 1990s the revolution had mellowed out to a great extent and there was the return to prosperity and more secure feelings about government.
This theory goes nicely with Steven Pinker’s about violence too, when he says that it’s most prevalent where governments are unstable (or perceived to be). The fact that violence has declined so much over history is largely due to the growth of more robust and organized governments around the world.
orion, good point. so the ultimate root of this might simply be demographic/generational.
We observe in Detroit an extremely high rate of homicide. We also observe in Detroit the belief that one’s government is unstable and its justice and legal systems are corrupt and ineffectual; a feeling that government officials are untrustworth and illegitimate.
Since politics can produce only good, it cannot be that politics produced a disaster, has destroyed Detroit. It must be people’s mistaken belief that politics is producing a disaster that produced the disaster. Clearly, we need to educate people to love their politicians.
Obviously on a political extremist would suggest that the justice system is corrupt and ineffectual, that the only way to survive is to grab what you can and kill whoever gets in the way, and that this practical reality might be causing the homicide rate.
jim, your point is well taken. but we’re talking about here are international cross-cultural variations over time. i.e., the phenomenon occurred in japan too.
James A. Donald — sarcasm?
If not, I truly have no idea what you are trying to say.
***James A. Donald — sarcasm?
If not, I truly have no idea what you are trying to say.***
Yes, he’s mocking the inadequacy of Roth’s factors.
Yes, he’s mocking the inadequacy of Roth’s factors.
he doesn’t read very closely. of course, some readers will turn every post into american racial dynamics. kind of gets old. why detroit is more violent than ann arbor is no mystery. why the developed world went through a secular rise in crime in the 60s synchronously, which abated somewhat in the 1990s, is.
His theory appears self-contradictory in so far as he claims that poverty and unemployment have nothing to do with crime, and yet that dissatisfaction with one’s position in society is a cause of violence. Unless he is claiming that unemployment and SES does not affect one’s satisfaction with their social position.
Otherwise, I agree that general social cohesion predicts (lack of) violence. I assume that social cohesion (trust in neighbors) and trust in government are highly correlated and logically interrelated. So his first three factors are probably more like one factor– call it prosociality.
Also, I’m not sure that counting street names from 1830 (or whatever) is better than just running regressions on all the World Values Survey questions and seeing what the top predictors are.
***he doesn’t read very closely.***
The last two of Roth’s factors could apply in that example too.
Here is Pinker’s essay setting out four possible reasons for the overall decline in violence.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
running regressions on all the World Values Survey questions and seeing what the top predictors are.
has anyone done that? i have the WVS 2005 as a data frame.
The last two of Roth’s factors could apply in that example too.
right, but i’m not interested in the magnitude that much. we know the demographic parameters which amplify the effects. the non-trivial area of research is exploring cross-national factors which effect the common vector which can be traced back to the post-world war ii era.
it’s one thing to criticize PC scholars who ignore racial differences in social outcomes. but sometimes it isn’t always the point, and just because you have a hammer doesn’t mean that it’s a nail. perhaps i’m showing my impatience with talking about the same thing for the 1000th time.
That violence should be correlated with lack of trust in the government and a sense of solidarity with fellow citizens is a no brainer. How much solidarity will you feel with your neighbors when your community is wracked by gang violence? How much trust will you have in government when it cannot protect you? ( And of course, a high crime rate means the police must arrest more people, which will result in more cases of police brutality).
Does the book American Homicide actually present evidence that the causation runs from lack of trust to violence? Or is this the typical social science BS (plot some broad correlations and then read into it your favorite theory)?
has anyone done that? i have the WVS 2005 as a data frame.
People have tested their pet theories, but I don’t think anyone has asked the WVS its opinion. Or maybe they have and they retroactively “predicted” it for their paper.
Anyway, prosociality (Roth’s first three factors, however lumped or defined) is clearly a biggie:
Multivariate models incorporating self-interested values, economic inequality, social trust and the interaction between these variables explained two-thirds of variance in victimization at the national level.
***the non-trivial area of research is exploring cross-national factors which effect the common vector which can be traced back to the post-world war ii era.***
Is there a television effect?
***The dramatic surge in levels of violent crime in countries where TV is relatively new is clear to measure. Studies have been done on these countries, which have found a 10-15 year incubation period of TV arriving to the crime rates doubling.***
http://www.ginafordbooks.com/arigsigman.htm#q6
“That violence should be correlated with lack of trust in the government and a sense of solidarity with fellow citizens is a no brainer. How much solidarity will you feel with your neighbors when your community is wracked by gang violence? How much trust will you have in government when it cannot protect you? ( And of course, a high crime rate means the police must arrest more people, which will result in more cases of police brutality).
Does the book American Homicide actually present evidence that the causation runs from lack of trust to violence? Or is this the typical social science BS (plot some broad correlations and then read into it your favorite theory)?”
I was thinking the exact same thing. I trust people a lot less in my home in California than my college town in New England, precisely because my California home has so much more crime.
I suppose you could say a similar thing about television. If you don’t trust the people in your community, then you’re going to spend more time at home alone. Consequently, you’ll likely resort more to TV to keep yourself entertained.
At the same time, however, I never understood why people who blame TV for causing so many social problems don’t criticize books, as well. There’s lots of violence/sex in books, which, if anything, is less censored than TV. Furthermore, reading is an extremely socially isolating activity. When I see someone watch TV, at least I can hop on the couch next to them and watch along. If I see someone read a book, however, there’s not much I can do to participate. The “Gina Ford Books” article mentioned many countries where TV viewing has become more common, but it doesn’t mention that the literacy rate has also climbed in these countries.
a belief that one’s position is society is satisfactory and that one can command respect without resorting to violence
The type of homicide whose frequency is least variable between countries is family homicide (uxoricide, filicide, familicide, etc.). The type whose frequency is most variable – and which accounts for most homicides in high-homicide countries and areas – is homicide between unrelated young men. I think you have to separate out types of homicide (i.e., not “count” family homicide) to get any idea of the causes of variation.
But anyway – Daly and Wilson (http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/bmj_chicago.pdf among others) have shown strong correlations (from the country to the neighborhood level) between male-male nonrelated homicide rates and things like life expectancy and income inequality, which accords with Roth’s factor above. This factor, at least, predicts that high-risk activities like homicide are more likely to be chosen in environments that encourage risk (low expected reproductive value in general for young, poor males, and potentially high reward in terms of status/mating ability for risky activities like fighting and drug dealing). Low life expectancy and mating expectancy would be expected to cause future discounting.
Maybe they have the cause and effect wrong. Detroit is a disaster because it is filled with black people. Most bad areas are filled with black people or white trash. Perhaps people who are more likely to be violent are also more likely to have little faith in government.
Atheism is hardly worth risking your life for, but what if you have the urge to join the early christian martyrs? Its been known to happen…
my point, in the comments above, is that changes in violence from 1960 to 2000 (up, then down, though not to the pre-1960 level) can’t be accounted for changes in the numbers of black people and white trash, many developed countries have few black people (USA is the exception), while japan has no white trash. this is not a difficult concept. while detroit has more crime than ann arbor is obvious.* why crime rates in the developed world shot up in the 1960s, and then went back down in the 1990s, in sync, is less obvious.
(i’ll keep repeating myself, since it is clear that commenters don’t read these boards closely)
* and just because it isn’t PC to talk about it, it isn’t as if most people don’t know it.
What about the abortion theory? It seems likely someone must have looked at it internationally, but if so I don’t know about it. It does nothing for the 60′s surge of course, but it could have something to do with the synchronized 90′s decline. Note that the theory can be read more expansively than just abortion — it seems to me that it should also include improved access to contraceptives for problem populations (which don’t have to be the same populations from country to country). In fact the theory could be expanded to include anything that might bring down the birthrate among women who for whatever reason were incapable of properly raising their children.
As for the 60′s, well, they were the 60′s, and maybe that’s sufficient….
The media has mostly picked up on the exciting and confrontational parts of the Sixties and Seventies, but they don’t spend much time pointing out that much of the disorder was demonstrations protesting social inequities. For instance, there certainly was an hedonic revolution but it wasn’t just a desire for open sex — a strong part of it was the demand to be the unique individual you were, whether straight, gay, trans-something or whatever. This was also the period of Headstart, the Diggers, early housing reform, and the founding of many communes, which persist. Minority groups resorted to violence that had previously been used against them by “law and order.”
I would suggest that the loosening of Fifties rigor did allow violence out into the open but that what people — as in “the people’s this and the people’s that — also learned was how to form organizations from scratch, skills that gradually contributed to more recognized civic dynamics. It was like one of those earthquakes that releases pent-up energy.
I think we’re getting about due for another one. 30% of the population in prison? Mostly drug offenses?
Prairie Mary
Regarding different forms of “prosociality” – it seems that Roth would predict corruption perception and bribery to be strongly correlated with homicide rates (Factors 1, 2, and 3). I’d predict that (very local level) income inequality (Factor 4?) would be a much better predictor than corruption perception and bribery. (I can only find data on corruption perception back to the 1990s, though.)
I say “very local level” because local-level stuff seems to be what’s operating in terms of violence. Apparently local-level income inequality is a much better predictor of civil war than country-wide inequality.
. . . Roth has found that one of the best predictors of increases and declines in America’s homicide rate in the past was the percentage of new counties named for national heroes — an indirect measure of how Americans felt about their nation and one another. . . . “When Americans stopped identifying with each other through national heroes, they killed each other more often,” Roth said.
Um . . . right.
In his defense, he does separate out family homicides and unrelated male homicides, my bad.
re: abortion. different states legalized at different times, and basal abortions have always varied. seems like a ‘natural experiment.’
(i’ll keep repeating myself, since it is clear that commenters don’t read these boards closely)
On this issue in particular, it’s pointless. Everyone believes that the level of violence was more or less static (maybe even lower) back to whenever their Golden Age is (The Fifties, Victorian era, Renaissance, whatever), and then it shot up during the ’60s and fell again in the ’90s.
No one is interested in the level of homicide through time and space, even though there’s pretty good data on it (I even posted the time series plots on GNXP not long ago).
Homicide, violence, crime, etc. — it’s all just a springboard to rant about what they don’t like about the past couple of generations. Otherwise the crime wave of the early 20th C would be as well established in the public mind — and certainly in the elite mind — as the Great Depression is when we think about banking, finance, and unemployment.
A couple of the icons from that wave have remained as fossils — actually, pretty much just Al Capone — but the big picture has been lost. It lasted through the Looney Tunes in popular culture, but not too long after that. Some ’90s rappers tipped their hats to the “original gangstas,” but again no one knew what the big picture was that they were talking about.
Anyway, point is that no one wants to know about crime or violence; just to use it to grind an ax about the recent past.
If anyone these days was literate enough to read and understand Carlyle’s Model Prisons, they wouldn’t be asking these questions. Readers more interested in current sources may consult Peter Hitchens or Theodore Dalrymple.
And as I’ve said before, it’s absurd to compare the American crime wave of the ’20s to that ’70s, or even that of today. The standard of reporting was completely different. The bar was much lower.
In the ’20s something like the Knoxville Atrocity, for instance, would have been front-page news for a whole summer. Not to mention Anne Pressly, Lauren Burk, etc, etc. Incredible savage crimes by unbelievably debased and inhuman bipeds. Now? No one cares, and if they hear they yawn. That’s training, my friends – not nature.
agnostic, I’ll bet you’ve never even heard of any of these heinous crimes. That’s because it’s not the ’20s. (And because you’re not a Larry Auster reader.) Also, what was the last book, newspaper or magazine written in the ’20s you read? Or any prior decade? Some of us are interested in the past. Others aren’t…
Someone mentioned that most of the variation in homicides is due to young men killing other, unrelated young men. Many things happened in the sixties, but one thing that happened in the sixties is that the baby boom generation entered sexual maturity, and they discovered the pill. Might the surge in violence in the sixties be due to new inequalities between males in opportunities for sex? And the drop in the nineties might be due to the boomers entering the phase of life in which male testosterone levels and sex drive decline, transforming the sexual marketplace?
Here – here’s a great case study, ripped from the headlines: Bobby Brown. I quote:
The most serious crime on his record dates to July 13, 1999, when police said he shot at a Noe Valley man who confronted him for knocking on a woman’s window at 11 p.m.
The man told him to leave but Bobby Brown fired at the man and fled, officials said. Bobby Brown was arrested on attempted murder charges and pleaded guilty to charges of assault with a deadly weapon.
He was given a three-year suspended prison sentence but was later sent to prison for violating his parole.
You will find no other system of government in history that has ever chosen to terrorize its citizens by unleashing Bobby Browns on them. This regime of stable low-level anarchy is a new thing. Is it a good thing? It’s certainly an American thing, a 20th-century thing, and a democratic thing.
With this context, perhaps we can continue this important discussion of why there are all these elephant turds in our living-room. Could someone have catapulted them in, perhaps, with a ballista? Ouch! Why, yes, Dumbo, I’m sorry. That is your tusk. Now, where were we?
Byzantium under Constantine did, per Procopius.
razib wrote: …changes in violence from 1960 to 2000 (up, then down, though not to the pre-1960 level)…japan has no white trash
Could you post a link to the historical crime stats you’re using? According to this: ssjj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jyi044v1.pdf
Japanese murder rates plummeted through the 60s, only to plataeu (as other violent crime rose) in the 90s.
chris, i’m probably wrong about japan if you stats hold up. i’ve heard that the US crime drop of the 90s was paralleled elsewhere. but perhaps that’s wrong too.
Was the rise in crime internationally synchronous? My vague impression was that it happened first in the U.S., second in Europe, and never in Japan.
I would not rule out lead pollution as lowering self-control, although didn’t Japan have a lot of lead from gasoline? But the U.S. probably had more lead from gasoline in the environment earlier than Europe, due to having more cars.
Wages were high internationally in the sixties; more cash, more irrational exuberance, higher animal spirits.
Thus, more crime.
The freeze on working-class wages since the early 80s is terrible public policy, but I think it did cut crime.
Intelligent AND sincere? Who do you think you are?
more cash, more irrational exuberance, higher animal spirits.
Sure, “irrational exuberance” at the minimum wage (whatever it is)!
It is also “well known” that the crime rate rises with disposable income, all those murderous billionaires…
ROFLMAO
20$ an hour isn’t minimum wage. It wasn’t unusual twenty years ago.
Minimum wage jobs are depressing. A good job peps you up.
Steve Sailer wrote: “I would not rule out lead pollution as lowering self-control”
I’ve never been a fan of the lead hypothesis. For one thing, I’ve heard much more about lead’s deleterious effects on intelligence than on self-control, and IQ was famously NOT falling in the 70s and 80s. Second, in the US, among blacks, who mostly lived in those nasty, lead-fume-filled urban areas, there was a big drop in their homicide rate in the early 80s (almost as big as their mid-90′s drop), before it rose dramatically again during the crack wars. Lead wouldn’t seem to figure into that at all.