
Research suggests a link between homicide and inequality - kafkaesq
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/08/income-inequality-murder-homicide-rates
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ameister14
How they dismiss the extreme negative correlation between income inequality
and homicide rate is funny:

"Daly says that no one knows what time lag to expect between a rise in
inequality and a rise in murder – but if it does take a few decades, this
could be the start of a troubling trend, not a blip."

Income inequality rose, and homicide rate rose, then income inequality rose
much faster and homicide rate dropped dramatically.

~~~
logingone
Exactly, and "...the 1% took 85% of income growth and the situation has only
worsened since. During that time, however, homicide rates showed nearly the
opposite pattern". This is dishonest Guardian agenda. Even before getting to
that dismissal the article never mentioned the word poverty which is often
confused with inequality, probably deliberately by the likes of the Guardian
who won't be happy until the UK has re-created the Venezuelan economy.

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sevenfive
In the US, inequality has been mostly driven by the top 1-10% outstripping
everyone else. But the murders described in the article (and that comprise
most of thise statistics) are obviously between two 90%ers. So the Guardian's
conclusion that inequality trends will cause more murders hardly follows. As
other comment points out, poverty is the relevant variable here.

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woodandsteel
According to the NRA, the reason poor people kill each other so much is they
don't have enough guns.

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gremlinsinc
An ironic feedback loop would be if murders targeted only the 1%, then
essentially they'd lower the murder rate by thinning out inequality.

~~~
mc32
Probably the opposite would occur. It likely would have a "decapitation"
effect on the economy and everyone would become poor --kind of like what we
see in VZ, where industries were nationalized, owners skipped town, state
didn't have the expertise and state exacerbated issue by not doing basic
maintenance and upgrades. End result is more poverty and more murder, etc.

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norswap
Original title: The _surprising_ factors driving murder rates: income
inequality and respect (emphasis mine)

Surprising, really?

~~~
tptacek
When the mods take the time to remove bait from a title, especially when it's
bait you disagree with, please don't bring it _back_ to the thread.

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otakucode
Research was done decades ago across all cultures on the globe looking for
predictors of violent crime. Hundreds of different factors were considered and
evaluated. Only 1 had significant predictive power. Economic disparity. Just
poverty itself was OK - so long as it was not present in close proximity to
abundance. In every single place where large economic disparity existed,
violent crime was high. In no place where economic disparity was absent was
violent crime high.

Economic disparity causes violent crime. To believe you can accept and
encourage one without also accepting and encouraging the other is ignorant,
childish, and utterly irrational.

(the book 'Nine Crazy Ideas in Science' in chapter 1 cites a bunch of the
research done in this field, they were specifically looking for the influence
of overall gun ownership rates but found gun ownership prevalence has no
predictive power for violent crime rates)

~~~
logfromblammo
I think more recent research also suggests Pb pollution levels as a predictive
factor, with a 22 year lead time (yes, pun intended).

So the use of tetra-ethyl lead in vehicle fuel from 1920 to 1975 in the US
roughly correlates with greater nationwide violence between 1942 and 1997.
Specific tracts known to have ongoing lead contamination problems show
stronger correlations.

So if lead pollution had not been tackled in the 70s, poor people in the
alternate-timeline 2017 might be even more murdery, now that wealth imbalances
are worse. Their opioid epidemic might look more like the 1980s crack
epidemic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-
crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-crime_hypothesis)

~~~
otakucode
There should be much better results than simply one single nation for that...
China in particular should be extremely indicative. While the US 'banned'
leaded gasoline and it took decades to actually phase out its use, China
banned it and within 18 months use stopped entirely. While the US saw gradual
declines, China should see a precipitous drop. It does make me wonder about
places like parts of Africa which seem to have economic disparity driving
violence right alongside nations which are stupendously poor (the poorest in
the world) but which are very peaceful and have some of the lowest violent
crime rates in the world as they lack economic disparity (everyone is
similarly impoverished). Does the poor nation not use leaded gasoline or have
other sources of lead? What happened in Europe with regards to leaded
gasoline? Does Indonesia still use leaded gas? If looking for consequences of
human nature, it's always a mistake to omit any culture.

I know that hookworm played a significantly role in the US south, and after
its eradication things improved every single year since. Hookworm is still a
major problem in most of Africa, though. Infection with hookworm in childhood
results in permanent IQ loss, regardless of whether it is later treated, the
damage remains.

My personal opinion is that we should not necessarily expect the actual
monetary scale of the difference to accurately predict the magnitude of the
violent crime. Most likely, the economic disparity is a proxy for something
else that does not scale the same as the monetary values do. Namely control.
Economic disparity always coexists with a small group exerting control upon a
larger one to extract the value they create and take it for themselves. Humans
always respond negatively to control - both being controlled and exerting
control on others. They react pretty predictably, too. They assert control
over themselves and their own bodies, then seek to establish status by being
seen as dominant in their peer group, then seek to establish an alternative
power hierarchy from the overaching order, then engage in plays for dominance
between those alternative hierarchies (gangs), then eventually the gangs merge
and become an army who goes to war against the overarching order. It happens
in families, in schools, in prisons, in militaries, in nations, everywhere.
Different scales, and different manifestations, but control is a poison to
humans.

~~~
emj
The Hookworm program seems to have been more about education and sanitation
than eradication, and apparently it has come back in the poorer areas of the
US not quite the infections rates as earlier though. I couldn't find support
for the IQ claim, but I guess it's always an issue if you are host to a
parasite.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Sanitary_Commissio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Sanitary_Commission)
[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/09/12/5503876...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/09/12/550387650/the-
u-s-thought-it-was-rid-of-hookworm-wrong)

