: : Don: The US homicide rate does not show any kind of direct correlation with economics. : I wouldn't say direct, but...looking at teh chart- murder rises with increased urbanisation (an economic factor, urbanisation is driven by economics),
Don: I believe we had increased urbanisation in the 1890s, then again in the 1950s. I agree that packing more people together leads to greater violence, all else being equal. I also agree that economic issues effect urbanisation. However, this is not a *direct* economic effect on the violent crime rate.
: further, IIRC the worst of the Depression was '33-'35,
Don: The crime rate was rising *before* the depression occured, and continued to rise at about the same rate until around '35, when there was a downturn--in the middle of the Great Depression.
:at which times the murder rates peak- staying low, all the way through teh fifities, and peaking again around '68, which was another year of economic down turn,
Don: When I think of '68, I don't think of economic downturn. I think of Vietnam, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a significant change in society.
:and again in the seventies, from which we still haven't recovered.
Don: Right now, the US is doing well economically. We had a minor downturn in the early 90s, but we have actually been doing well since I can remember (I didn't pay much attention to economics in the 60s and 70s).
: That graph pretty closely charts my understanding of economic history this century....
Don: If the root cause is economics, why did homicides go down during the Great Depression? If the root cause is the disparity in wealth, why was the homicide rate so low back around 1900, when the greatest disperity in wealth existed? The '20s had more equity of wealth than pre-1914, and better economic conditions than the Great Depression, but it also had a greater homicide rate (yes, the rate continued to rise some after the boom of the '20s ended, but that was just the continuation of a trend).
None.
