Stabbing on Shawbury Rd

[Penguin68]

@Penguin68 - What are the proportional incidences over the last 100 years ? - obviously taking into account population growth. Interested to find out.

The full details, and many more, are in Pinker's book - but, for instance, in 1900 (all figures per 100k population) Italy was running at 4, Germany & France at about 2, Sweden at 1.5 and England at 1. Everyone in Europe has thus tended towards the English level, with England remaining pretty stable over the past century, so actually no real fall - but equally no rise as sentencing of homicides has become far more lenient (no death penalty effectively after the war).

The US (in 1950) was at 4.5 - rose to 10 in the 70s and 80s and has fallen back, as I said to about 1950 levels now. Canada has slighty risen - was about 1 in 1960 and is 1.5 now.

[Penguin68]

increase in the homicide rate post aboltion of Capital Punishment to more than double the rate

Sorry, didn't happen.

[Huguenot]

Well I agree Quids - but all of that (especially US vs EU crime rates vs liberal sentencing) proves that there are for more complex issues at work here than whether the sentences are tough enough.

Tough sentencing is amateur tabloid problem solving, and there's no evidence it works.

People are foolish if they ignore the fact that the criminalization of stupid children (including depriving them of a quality education as well as providing them with the completely distorted social environment of a young offenders centre) is more likely to create a lifetime's antisocial behaviour than a model citizen.

But then I'm not sure that the 'hang 'em' brigade want a solution. They just want more hangings, for the sick glorious indulgence and self-justification it provides them with.

[Rianoo]

@Huguenot - So going back to my initial point - stats do not need referencing as they are pointless. I am also fine with the fact that a stupid kid will "grow out of" stabbing by his 30's but at what price - the damage has been done? Therefore knife crime justification is not on the board for me however small the figures are - harsher sentencing is required. To say that none of these individuals considered the sentence before they committed the crime is frankly absurd. And to say that they are unique situations is also absurd. Why are they carrying the knife in the first place ?

[Penguin68]

stats do not need referencing as they are pointless

Unreferenced statistics are pointless - you do need to know their basis, their source, caveats about their collection - all of which are discussed in detail by Steven Pinker in his book, which is thus the only reference I offer - but understood statistics are the very lifeblood of modern decision making - to say - 'don't confuse me with evidence, my unsupported assertions are sufficient' - now that is simply pointless.

[Penguin68]

I should have added that Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and previously (until 2003) taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Studies at MIT. His book concerns the apparent (and he believes real) reduction in human violence and the possible causes of this in terms of pyschological and sociological behavioural changes. His aanlysis of historical changes in violence levels is a necessary precurser to his discussion of causative issues for this.

He is a very serious academic.

[Rianoo]

OK 1 in 4 stabbings are by juveniles and homicide is at an even level. Job done.

[Rianoo]

http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/datatable.php?borough=md&period=year

Interesting figures on robbery.

[James Barber]

Recent research suggests recent decreases in violent crime is linked to lead free petrol. Lead has been shown to vcause short tempers and mood swings. Correlation of reduncing lead in environment and reducing violent crime in young people.

I thought this a fascinating different perspective in recent decreases despite falling Police numbers.

[trizza]

?!? Seriously - lead free petrol. This sounds like complete nonsense james!

[Rianoo]

@James Barber

I think Professor Pinker drives a Yaris to Harvard and then apparently lectures on possible causes of crime. Serious stuff, must buy book.

[Penguin68]

Tetraethyl lead was added to petrol as an anti-knock additive - it was removed because catalytic converters (introduced to remove unburnt hydro-carbons from emissions) are gummed up by the lead in leaded petrol - leading to failure of the cat.

The lead in petrol fell to the ground out of exhausts (it is, after all, notoriously heavy) and it is a very moot point whether lead from petrol ever got into people sufficiently to impact their health. In order to pick this lead up you would have virtually to have follow cars around licking the roadway after the exhausts. It didn't get into the atmosphere (although it could, at very very diluted levels) enter waste water.

The correlation is far more likely to be with improving air quality (with fewer unburnt hydro-carbons, being trapped by the cats) - which was always believed to have an impact on health - hence the introduction of cats in the first place! The removal of leaded petrol was never about health, directly, but about the efficient operation of the catalytic converters.

More impact may have come from the reduction in use of leaded paints - here paint flakes from old paint were sufficently light to get into the atmosphere, but again the jury really is out on the epidemiology here away from those in close contact with deteriorating lead paint treatments.

It is rather like assuming that the reduction in smallpox incidence is related to the increase in the manufacture of syringe needles, rather than the use of the vaccine itself.

In so far as there is any possibility of a causitive link (correlation not implying causation) it seems far more likely to be linked to improving air quality (the purpose of using cats) than to the removal of lead from petrol, which shortened the cats' lives, but not - on any epidemiological studies - people's (unlike unburnt hydrocarbons).

The level of lead poisoning needed to develop symptoms as described is far, far higher than any exposure to precipitated lead particulates from leaded petrol could engender. Although there are, clinically, no known 'safe' levels of lead (which is one of the commonest substances) there are nomrally many more physical than 'mood' symptoms of substantial lead poisoning - that is, behaviour changes as described leading to increased levels of violence would normally be accompanied by many other physical (and visible) symptoms - unless we are into the 'homeopathic' mindset regarding the influence of substances on individuals (less is more!).

[Penguin68]

then apparently lectures on possible causes of crime

It is a book well worth reading, but Pinker is more interested in changes in underlying psychological behaviour patterns (and the way people respond to violence) than to specific causes of crime.

He points out that 18th (or possibly 17th) century French Kings went to the theatre to watch (as part of the entertainment) a live cat being tied to a pole, set alight and then beaten to death with sticks. This was seen, then, as fun - nowadays I doubt we would expect it at the Royal Variety. He wonders why and how our sensibilities have changed in such a very short time. He is not interested (at least in this book) in 'causes of crime' - which tends to be a sociological rather than a psychological interest.

He has also written excellent works on the development of language and language structures, building away from Chomsky's views on this.

[Rianoo]

I would guess that the view of watching a cat being burnt and beaten was not really that amusing to them - but what it would have created is a thought in 'peoples' minds. Could it be me or the cat ? A show of strength perhaps ? Out of interest - was this show put on for the general public or simply when the King ordered it and then arrived to watch ?

[Penguin68]

As I understand it (I didn't do the original research) it was part of a regular 'theatre' event, but one which the king attended. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier) torturing animals (bull and bear baiting and so on) whilst often gambled on, were also seen as a spectacle and entertainment, as were public hangings, floggings and so on. I doubt whether tying a cat to a pole and setting light to it and beating it to death with sticks could in anyway be seen either as a show of strength or to put any philosophical thoughts in people's minds - it was just a bit of fun, as boxing matches still are today (although without any veneer of 'skill').

[KidKruger]

Just to be accurate - there's no veneer of skill in boxing, it's genuine, hard-earned skill. And doesn't need 'apostrophising'. ;)

[Rianoo]

So we haven't moved very far then in philosophical terms.

[James Barber]

Hi trizza,

Why?

Lots of research proving lead poisoning causing agreesion and violence.

Latest research suggests even relaitvely mild doeses havre that effect and reducing lead in the environment as correlating to reduce agression and violence.

Perhaps the phrase shouldnt be "we are what we eat" but we are what we ingest".

[Huguenot]

Hmmm, JB, I admire your more politically combative stance in the last few weeks, but I think arguments about lead from petrol and knife crime/social mood would be marginal at best.

Responses to knife crime are emotional not rational (as Rianoo has highlighted), people are disinclined to respond to evidence or logical arguments (having said that, I don't believe the lead argument is anything other than a marginal distraction, not logical).

As off the wall as it may seem, I'd be more inclined to sponsor the stage at the upcoming ED fair with a community campaign for 'outstanding' neighborhoods.

It would be a message to both the locality and to parents that you support their personal/private battles to discourage faint hearted teenagers from believing that carrying a knife gives them a 'quality' reputation.

Give them another way to stand out - fund a local junior entrepreneur (18 or under) to launch a business with ?3000. Prove that bright kids get kudos.

Encourage 'employment' between hard fought 'commercial' battles. Get them to think about their neighborhood politically and socially.

Knife crime amongst teenagers, like stamping amongst pre-schoolers, is about diversion.

[LadyDeliah]

"Knife crime amongst teenagers, like stamping amongst pre-schoolers, is about diversion."

Lol, I have to agree.

[LoisP]

Funny you mention - two guys approached me of that description late last night outside PR station - the white guy repeatedly asked me if he could ask me something. Was quite strange - not sure if it is related

[nashoi]

Here are few actual quotes from Pinker's book.

"Plotting the homicide rates of five major european countries over the last century we see the historical trajectory we have been tracking: a long-term decline that lasted until the 1960s, an uptick that began in that tumultuous decade, and the recent return to more peaceable rates. Every major western european country showed a decline, and though it looked for a while as if England and Ireland would be exceptions, in the 2000s their rates dropped as well."

So England's homicide rate did double and has not quite returned to 1950s levels yet. When he goes on to discuss how this has happened the very first point he makes is the following (talking about the US):

"... the country beefed up the criminal justice sysyem in several ways. The most effective was also the crudest: putting more men behibd bars for longer periods of time. The rate of imprisonment in the US was pretty much flat from the 1920s to the 1960s, and it even declined a bit in the early 70s. But then it shot up almost fivefold, and today more than two million americans are in jail, the highest incarceration rate on the planet."

"Unlike the more gimmicky theories of the crime decline, massive imprisonment is almost certain to lower crime rates because the mechanism by which it operates has so few moving parts. Imprisonment physically removes the most crime prone individuals from the streets...Incarceration is especially effective when a small number of individuals commit a large number of crimes."

"Incarceration can also reduce violence by the familiar but less direct route of deterrence...But proving that incarceration deters people (as opposed to incapacitating them) is easier said than done, because the statistics are inherently stacked against it...But with suitable ingenuity the deterrence effect can be tested. Analyses by Levitt and other statisticians of crime suggest that deterrence works."

"But the case that the incarceration boom led to the crime decline is far from watertight. For one thing the prison bulge began in the 1980s, but violence did not decline until a decade later. For another Canada did not go an imprisonment binge, but its violence rate went down too. These facts don't disprove the theory that imprisonment mattered,but they force it to make additional assumptions, such as that the effect of imprisonment builds up over time, reaches a critical mass, and spills over national borders."

[Huguenot]

The other conclusion being, of course, that since violence and incarceration didn't follow each other that no cause and effect system is at play.

If nothing else, the US's huge imprisonment rates demonstrate that there is no cost/benefit calculation taking place in the minds of petty thugs when they commit their crime.

[LadyDeliah]

I'd like to know if the voilent crimes and murders committed in prison are counted in the statistics? If not, then they haven't been reduced at all, merely diverted.

[Huguenot]

Well, save chopping their heads off, there probably isn't much to be done about that. It's not a very good reason for not putting them in jail?