In a message dated 8/14/02 3:38:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Here's a link to a NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/12/national/12MURD.html?ex=1030256121ei=1en=4
ca972cf978300ff
It refers to a study by Anthony R. Harris, published in the journal Homicide
Studies. He studies hospital admissions of assault victims, and finds that
substantial advances in trauma care have reduced mortality among assault
victims. That is, given an assault, the victim who would have died in 1960
(becoming a murder statistic) survives the assault in the 1990s. Thus, some
of the declining murder rate since the 1960s may be attributable to better
health care, not lessened murderous behavior.
Has anyone seen the study? If so, does the finding appear genuine? As the
news article sums up, [T]he study could raise questions about how
crime statistics are analyzed, and that researchers should
consider whether medical care has improved when assessing
local changes in crime rates. Interesting stuff for the econ of crime folks.
Noel
As I understand it, rates of all crimes, violent and non-violent, have
trended downward since around 1980, and that in the 1990s we actually saw
drops in the numbers (not merely rates per thousand) of crimes of all types
committed in the US. The largest factor tending to reduce crime rates might
be an aging population, since young men tend to commit a disproportionately
large share of crimes (I presume excluding white collar crimes, but with the
advent of crimes by computer hacking, I'm not sure if that's true anymore
either).
While improvements in medical care might well account for a simple drop in
the rate of murder (or even in the number of murders), how could it account
for a drop in the rate (to say nothing of the number) of assaults? Even the
aging of the population does not seems able to account for an actual drop in
the number of assaults when the size of the population continues to increase.
I do know that states which have passed general concealed carry permit laws
have seen rather drastic drops in the rate of homicide and other violent
crimes; I'm most familiar with the case of Florida, which experienced a drop
in one year from 50% over the national average (of homicides) to just under
the national average--an average that itself was falling, even I believe if
you take the average of only the other 49 states. Medical improvements seem
incapable of explaining such sudden drops, which I understand have been
mirrored in each of the other states that has passed general concealed carry.
It seems likely that concealed carry has itself contributed to drops in
murder (and other violent crime) rates.
Concealed carry didn't really start until the 1990s, so obviously it can't
explain falling crime rates in the 1980s, and I suspect that it alone can't
account for falling numbers of crimes in the 1990s. Beyond aging and
concealed carry, we could look at prison sentences and likelihoods of
incarceration. During the 1980s in particularly candidates touting a get
tough on crime agenda got elected all across the US, and federal and state
governments passed all sorts of laws to increase punishments and the
likelihood of their imposition. I suspect that the get tough attitude and
its impact on crime policies also contributed to the decline in crime in the
US.
I know that economists sometimes model crime. Does anyone here at GMU model
crime, and is it something someone here can do as part of a dissertation?
Sincerely,
David
