On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 11:27:58AM -0800, Guy Smith wrote: > Just some notes from a brief scan. > > In the abstract are two counterpoints: > > a) "gun availability at home increases the propensity to commit crime by > about two percentage points for juveniles" > > b) "the median impact of cocaine use on the propensity to commit > various types of crimes is 11 percentage points. The impact of using > inhalants or other drugs is an increase in the propensity to commit > crime by 7 and 6 percentage points, respectively."
I haven't read the article, but this point brings up a curiosity. What, if any, does the study show about the impact of legal drug use, e.g. alcohol, caffeine, etc., on the propensity to commit crime. That is, is it the drug per se, or the illegality? > > I do find it odd that a German institute is doing analysis of U.S. > criminology, but it's a free country (or so I'm told). > > I find the data source uncompelling: National Longitudinal Study of > Adolescent Health - an "in-school questionnaire administered to every > student who attended one of the sampled 132 U.S. schools on a particular day > during the period between September 1994 and April 1995". I don't have time > to track down where these 132 schools are, but I have a hunch they are in > major metro areas only. One of the reasons I believe this may be true is > that 22-24% of the kids reported that there were firearms in their homes, > about 1/2 the rate commonly reported from national adult surveys, but > similar (if I recall) to the adult reporting rate in major metro areas. On the other tentacle, suppose the kids are lying on the firearms question because they figure it's none of the government's business? I recall a US DoJ study (U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, NCJ-143454, "Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse," August 1995) that suggested that kids who grew up with legal firearms in the home had lower crime rates than kids who grew up with no or illegal guns. If you'll pardon the lurid approach on this page, it does have a copy of the study in PDF. http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kids.html This supports Guy's contention that the schools are primarily urban (gun banning). -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
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