What is poverty, she said, and washed her hands?

One of the Vietnamese people I met here asked a question I had a hard time answering, even though she spoke excellent English: why, she asked, did DC have so much crime?

Even with no language barrier, I found myself staring across a cultural gulf I couldn't bridge in the 45 minutes we had to eat lunch. I wanted to say, "they are poor". But that seems a ridiculous statement in a country of 85 million people who are nearly all living at a lower standard of material consumption than the poor of DC. I feel a lot safer walking around in Hanoi than in most parts of the district, though of course, this may be tourist folly (I also felt safe walking through bits of Dublin that gave my host near-hysterics.)

But the poor of DC are still poor. It's still very hard to be one of them, and even harder to stop being one of them. I'm not a convert to the idea that the only thing that matters is material poverty; clearly, there is also something soul-killing about having your society brand you and everyone you know as failures. On the other hand, "culture matters" doesn't get you very far as a poverty eradication program; no matter how much money you give welfare mothers, they'll still be on welfare. And "they're poor" has proven to offer little in the way of crime-reduction strategies; we've been much more successful with things like more police on the beat.

I'm not sure what I mumbled, but I changed the topic pretty quickly. I wonder how often my hosts have done the same to me when they just couldn't explain.

Comments

I believe that relative poverty is more important than absolute poverty. In other words, people are more affected by how they are doing relative to those around them than by how they are doing on some absolute scale.

I don't have any citations, but I read about a study that found that people were willing to make themselves a little bit worse off to prevent someone else from having a big windfall rather than getting a little for themselves and letting another person get a lot.

Also, I suspect that poverty is not the root cause of high crime rates. It is probably another symptom of a deeper problem that has its roots in history.

EI

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | November 20, 2007 10:38 AM

I sidestep the issue by talking about a sense of proportion, and how seeing something on TV or reading it in the paper just doesn't give it to you. I am often amazed when hosting people either from far away in the US, or from other countries how different the points of view on EVERYTHING are.

It's like drinking a warm Pepsi in East Germany... you can almost blow a circuit trying to figure out how to reconcile it.

How much more difficult is it to explain what would be unexplainable in DC, or NYC or Chi? Drop in the foreign frame of reference... and the point is moot.

When I was asked a similar question in East Berlin in '83, I pointed out that there were Polezei on every corner there, and we didn't have that. My 'minder' commented that we should have that and then we wouldn't have the crime. I was way too young to have the full comprehension of the differnece. But I knew they were not 'free' and that I had to watch what I said, and did, so as not to get into trouble. Fortunately I kept my opinions to myself then.
Frames of reference are sometimes difficult to reconcile.

Douglas, on the other hand, would argue that the one thing any sentient being can least afford to have, is a good sense of proportion. But then maybe you have to have a Zaphod to counteract that anyway...

Posted by D | November 20, 2007 11:00 AM

I don't think poverty alone causes crime (what you point out about poor nations). I don't think lots of guns causes alone causes crime (places like Finland or Canada). But I do suspect that lots of poverty and lots of crime together causes crime, as in Washington, Bogota, or Johannesburg.

Posted by Freddie | November 20, 2007 11:03 AM

Freddie-
I assume you mean "lots of poverty and lots of guns together causes crime".

Don't forget Philadelphia!

Posted by Rickm | November 20, 2007 11:13 AM

My best guess:

Crime rate is a result of

1. culture and worldview,
2. habits and mindsets,
3. material wants,
4. social status, and
5. optimism/pessimism of one's ability to change one's status.

Posted by Luke G. | November 20, 2007 11:15 AM

ugh you're right Rick, stupid mistake.

Posted by Freddie | November 20, 2007 11:22 AM

Why do we assume that crime is the result of poverty? Rich white collar people commit crimes.

Two answers that I (with the advantage of time & distance) might have given.

1) I don't know - if we knew what causes crime, we'd be on our way to stopping it.

2) Because there are so many people in DC.

Posted by Mark Wallace | November 20, 2007 11:22 AM

Yes, there is a theory of relative poverty, Virginia.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/byrns_web/Economicae/Essays/Poverty_RelAbs.htm

Glad you finally discovered this.

Posted by Justin | November 20, 2007 11:24 AM

Interesting that the 3 places Freddie names as fitting the 'poverty + guns' equation also fit the 'massive inequality that stares you in the face and makes you bitter' equation (a la post one), no?

I do not think I know the reason, just pointing that out in case there are other examples that fit in one but not the other.

Posted by Vermando | November 20, 2007 11:25 AM

I also think that in a highly mobile, more anonymous society, in which families are more fractured or distant, shame is a far less powerful deterrent, and once the level of crminality reaches a certain tipping point, shame largely ceases to modify behavior. Yet another instance in which the idiotic war on drugs has contributed to unintended negative consequences.

Posted by Will Allen | November 20, 2007 11:26 AM

Vietnam is safe because it is filled with Vietnamese people. The same holds true throughout Asia. It even remains the case for Asians living in the US who commit crimes far less frequently than any other group. It isn't just poor Asian nations, as the Japanese and Koreans societies are also largely crime free.

I'd wager that if you replaced the current poor of DC with equivalently relatively Vietnamese people (and while you're at it the rich too), you'd see the streets cleaned up in no time.

Of course this theory just happens to fit the observed facts so it must be wrong. I'm sure the real reason is because there's some complicated ratio of haves to have nots which explains why billions of people from one group are less prone to crime than any other group.

Posted by BD | November 20, 2007 11:31 AM

Vermando-

I don't think Philadelphia fits your description.

Posted by Rickm | November 20, 2007 11:31 AM

I think the notion that Asian people are genetically/racially disinclined to crime is undermined by the history of organized crime in Asian countries.

And to dip into pure anecdotal evidence, I certainly found Bangkok to seem less safe than New York.

Posted by Freddie | November 20, 2007 11:44 AM

I'm not sure what I mumbled, but I changed the topic pretty quickly. I wonder how often my hosts have done the same to me when they just couldn't explain.

I would guess between 99.9% and 100% of the time.

Posted by Person | November 20, 2007 11:46 AM

Bangkok, in the time I was there, seemed like a lot of rapidly growing mega-cities around the world I've been to, where people lose a significant degree of contact with extended families, and with it a significant degree of social inhibition, which means an increase in all manner of previously frowned upon behavior, including criminal behavior. This is not a wholly bad thing, of course; human social interaction is infinitely complex, which means most developments are neither wholly good or wholly bad.

Posted by Will Allen | November 20, 2007 11:52 AM

Well the un-PC answer is that DC is heavily black, who (due to their genetic-based low IQ) tend to be more violent and lower-class (in economic outcome and actions).

But that won't get you invited to any more parties. So the "proper" answer is: Because our government does not provide them enough of other people's money.

Posted by Mr. Wizard | November 20, 2007 12:12 PM

Well the un-PC answer is that DC is heavily black, who (due to their genetic-based low IQ) tend to be more violent and lower-class (in economic outcome and actions).

First, how does it follow logically from low-IQ to high violence; and second, why then do cities with almost no black people like Bogota or Moscow or Manila have such a high crime rate?

Posted by Freddie | November 20, 2007 12:17 PM

Well the un-PC answer is that DC is heavily black, who (due to their genetic-based low IQ) tend to be more violent and lower-class (in economic outcome and actions).

I thought Andrew Sullivan had stopped using fake names.

Posted by roy edroso | November 20, 2007 12:27 PM

Things can be "un-PC" and still wrong, Mr. Wizard. I imagine that you're just trolling, so I'll leave it at that.

Posted by Seb | November 20, 2007 12:33 PM

If poverty and racial inferiority are the explanation, why is the black crime rate in 2007 so much higher than it was in 1950--when poverty, racial oppression, and racial purity were all so much more pronounced? And when, for that matter, you could literally order a pistol through the mail?

More likely explanations include family disintegration (leading to a failure to transmit values and lack of role models), packs of feral children essentially allowed to raise themselves (welcome to Lord of the Flies), and a culture of welfare dependency that promotes self-centeredness and instant gratification over honesty and work ethic.

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 12:33 PM

Mr. Lyman: good points, I think. One control of that explanation would be to see what happened to the "white" crime rate over the same period: I suspect that it's increased also. You could also look at the correlation of "family breakdown" with the crime rate across racial groups. My suspicion wold be that the correlation is very similar but not identical across groups.

Posted by Seb | November 20, 2007 12:39 PM

How about organized crime? If organized crime(engaged in by non-poor people for rational economic reasons) becomes normal in places with a lot of poor people, poor people might glom onto it as a way of moving up. The drug trade comes to mind. Then, once a significant part of a community is engaged in this kind of crime, random violence without any economic motivation becomes more common because the idea is less shocking.

In places without much organized crime, or where organized crime doesn't burrow into poor neighborhoods, the process might not get started.

In making this argument, I assume that the main concern is violent crime and not bicycle theft. Poor people might steal for economic reasons, but a lot of the "crime" we talk about in poor parts of the US is really just violence that doesn't connect to money or property. Rape is the most obvious example.

Posted by M.C. | November 20, 2007 12:47 PM

Poverty is the cause of crime, but not for the reasons people trot out: poor people lack the power to eliminate bad elements in their neighborhoods.

If someone breaks into my parents' house in the suburbs they can 1) afford to spend money to improve their security, 2) take time to testify, etc, 3) expect a strong response from the police.

If somone breaks into someone's house in North Philly or SE DC, there's a good chance they 1) can't afford to change all the locks, bar the windows, etc, 2) get off from work to go to court, 3) expect a strong response from the police[*].

Add to that the fact that anyone in those neighborhoods who manages to get themselves even slightly ahead does the only sane thing they can: they leave for safer neighborhoods.

*: not because the police don't care, but because they don't have the manpower, resources, time, etc.

Posted by Mike | November 20, 2007 12:47 PM

The existance of something worth stealing makes crime much more likely. If everybody is poor, what do you steal?

And, on another track...

Rich people are more respected than poor people. Crime can increase your wealth.

The powerful are happier than the powerless. Crime can give you power.

The reality that crime will likely leave you poor and powerless in the long run is unimportant when a significant number believe the opposite.

Posted by Njorl | November 20, 2007 12:48 PM

Uh oh.

Sounds like Megan is dangerously close to taking the red pill, realizing that positional goods matter, questioning the rest of the perscriptive Neo-Classical philosophical worldview, realizing that obsessive fixation on fictive mathematical equilibriums brought more rigor to economics- but also brought mortis, becoming disillusioned, and rediscovering "society" as a trans-economic concept.

To the woman in Vietnam who started it all: Good Question!

Posted by Malthus | November 20, 2007 1:02 PM

Njorl:

The existance of something worth stealing makes crime much more likely.

It makes pure property crime more likely, sure. Burglary, car theft, car breakins, catalytic converters, air bags, downspouts. It doesn't explain gangs of 14 year olds beating up old people, or a drug dealer shooting at another drug dealer and killing an innocent bystander in the crossfire.

If everybody is poor, what do you steal?

You steal stuff from other poor people.

Posted by BP Beckley | November 20, 2007 1:12 PM

Njorl says "The existance of something worth stealing makes crime much more likely. If everybody is poor, what do you steal?"

If that is the case, how does that square with Rob's post above that pointed out crime rates were much lower among black and white society in the US 50 years ago?

Was there nothing worth stealing? Please don't tell me that envy and coveting is a recent invention that has come about with CD players, DVD players, MP3s and Air Jordans?

Posted by sam | November 20, 2007 1:13 PM

The 50 states all hold elections and send their biggest crooks to DC to establish policy for the rest of us. That many crooks in one place can only be trouble. It's just unfortunate that their tentacles are still long enough to steal my possessions back here at home.

Posted by mike | November 20, 2007 1:21 PM

Another thought on causes is religion; someone fearing punishment in the afterlife probably will avoid the more severe forms of sin.

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 1:28 PM

I would offer up the idea that poverty doesn't cause crime, but that crime does indeed cause poverty, especially when there is widespread corruption, as in DC. And to add to what a few others have said, that cultural attitudes matter the most when it comes to causes of crime.

For those that think that DC has lots of crime because it has a lot of people, I submit to you the fact that NYC has far less violent crime, particularly murders.

The fact is that poor blacks in America are disproportionately the perpetrators and victims of violent crime, which is why cities with majority black populations have much worse crime statistics.

(http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/08/murder-city-danger-forbeslife-cx_de_1108murder.html)

Obviously the issue isn't their blackness, so much as the malignant inner-city culture that has taken root since the Great Society programs were implemented. Sadly, those who speak out against those cultural traits, such as Bill Cosby, are seen as kooks in the media and among the folks who make money off perpetuating the divide between poor blacks and the rest of the country.

Posted by Christina | November 20, 2007 1:30 PM

Please don't tell me that envy and coveting is a recent invention that has come about with CD players, DVD players, MP3s and Air Jordans?

No, but TV, movies, radio, and the Internet all telling you what you must have to be "cool" or have "street cred" is relatively new.

Posted by TakeFlight | November 20, 2007 1:31 PM

'Njorl says "The existance of something worth stealing makes crime much more likely. If everybody is poor, what do you steal?"

If that is the case, how does that square with Rob's post above that pointed out crime rates were much lower among black and white society in the US 50 years ago?'

That was more a case for why you didn't have much crime in Vietnam, not why you may or may not have more crime here.

Posted by Njorl | November 20, 2007 1:32 PM

he issue isn't their blackness, so much as the malignant inner-city culture

Amen to that. It's a shame that blacks seem to have appropriated this culture as their own test of "blackness" but that's another post entirely.

As for poverty, I suspect that some of the crime issue is that in Vietnam the poor aren't commiting crimes because they are hustling trying to figure out where their next meal is coming from whereas in the USA the "poor" criminals are trying to figure out where their next hit is coming from.

Posted by TakeFlight | November 20, 2007 1:40 PM

If poverty and racial inferiority are the explanation, why is the black crime rate in 2007 so much higher than it was in 1950--when poverty, racial oppression, and racial purity were all so much more pronounced? And when, for that matter, you could literally order a pistol through the mail?

I fear Rob L. hasn't done his homework. One should remember DC in the 1950s had reached its population peak; today's population is about 25% smaller than in the 1950s. Additionally, blacks comprised about 35% of the District's population as compared to today's 68%.

Additionally, the 'disintegration of the family' is a nice slogan but doesn't reflect reality. As Michael Lind pointed out, this is largely a conservative hoax.

WRT firearms, in the 1950s, guns were pretty much limited to hunters and sport shooters. The NRA has done a great job marketing the gun as something altogether different.

Posted by Vaboo | November 20, 2007 2:14 PM

Vaboo,

Please identify which of the following statements are incorrect.

1) Poverty in 1950 was more severe than today in absolute terms (and there were fewer government programs which directed money to the poor)

2) Racial oppression in 1950 was more severe than today

3) Racial mixing was less common than today

4) Nuclear families were more common and out-of-wedlock births were less common than today

5) Handguns could legally be ordered from the Sears Roebuck catalog and delivered by the USPS to your door.

Note that I said nothing about the population or racial balance of DC.

I'll ignore your bizarre comment about the NRA alone.

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 2:25 PM

Vabu,

Not quite sure how the disintegration of the family is a hoax...?

Your link discusses illegitimacy amongst blacks but there is much more to it than that - like higher divorce rates & single parenthood, lack of strong community accountability, missing family structure, lack of commitment between adults and children, etc.

In addition, blacks are not the only ones affected by the disintegration of the family, nor are they the only ones committing crimes.

Posted by TakeFlight | November 20, 2007 2:46 PM

Okay, I'll try my answer: crime has nothing to do with poverty. People commit crimes because for them, it's the path of least resistance. No amout of personal accumulation of wealth on the societal scale will change it. Criminals of the future will feel justified in their crimes because of their unfairly insufficient access to synthwater and neural charging stations.

Posted by Person | November 20, 2007 2:52 PM

For everybody who thinks that relative wealth matters more than absolute wealth:

Move to Vietnam - you'll be part of that coveted "richest 1%"

better yet, move to Equatorial Guinea - you'll be part of the richest 0.1%!

Posted by C L | November 20, 2007 2:53 PM

C L,

No one is arguing that absolute wealth is unimportant. However, a strict Neo-Classical would make exactly this claim regarding relative wealth. So, straw men aside, the onus is on you.

Posted by Malthus | November 20, 2007 3:10 PM

Rob L: Your #1 is true; #2 is true; #3 is true but isn't germane; #4 is false; #5 is true but isn't germane.

What you wish to ignore is the drug epidemics-particularly the crack scourge--taking place in the 1980s. Drug prosecutions largely account for the spike in crime you allude to. I suggest you'll find higher crime rates in the midwest recently as a result of meth.

When one looks at violent crimes--like murder--today's rates are similar to identical to those found pre-WWII.

One cannot honestly preclude both the availability and prevalence of firearms from rising rates of violent crime.

Posted by Vaboo | November 20, 2007 3:22 PM

Will and M.C. are onto something, I believe.

It's not simply that, after a tipping point, shame ceases to be a deterrent. It actually swings back negative after that point.

In some communities, mainly inner cities where gangs and drug dealers are prevalent, it's perceived as far more shameful to show up to work a cash register in a crappy restaurant every day for minimum wage than it is to be a drug dealer or gang leader. There's an active incentive to become a part of criminal culture, not just a lack of disincentive.

That sort of culture is self-stabilizing. You can't just try to add a little bit of shame or raise the minimum wage, and expect it to go away. There's music and movies glorifying the life of a hustler or thug or pimp.

Chris Rock has a bit about how education is disrespected, where one man comes home and declares "I just got my Masters degree!" and another yells "oh, so you think you my master now, huh?" and attacks him.

As much correlation as there is, this isn't about race, it's about culture. Black kids in midwestern suburbs whose parents are pressuring them to get into Yale don't have these same crime rates.

But this just brings us back to Megan's "culture matters", which, as she says, doesn't get us very far.

Posted by Geoff | November 20, 2007 3:23 PM

Vaboo: WRT firearms, in the 1950s, guns were pretty much limited to hunters and sport shooters. The NRA has done a great job marketing the gun as something altogether different.

What BS. It amazes me how people just make stuff up when it comes to guns.

Anyone who knows anything about the history of guns in this country could tell you that in the 1950s, prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act:
Long arms (rifles and shotguns) were essentially unregulated.
Pistols were much more easy to obtain.
You could buy firearms outside your state of residence, including through mail order.
You could legally buy foreign-made machine guns!

But, please continue to make stuff up! We can judge your other claims accordingly.

Posted by Kevin P. | November 20, 2007 3:36 PM

Vaboo,

I'm not sure who or what, exactly, you're arguing with here. I don't "wish to ignore" anything in particular.

Somebody upthread suggested that the reason DC has high crime is because of the high proportion of black residents. MM was flustered by her own desire to suggest poverty. I pointed out that if race and poverty were the driving factors, then black crime rates in 1950 should have been higher than today, because that was a time of both greater poverty and greater racial "purity," if you will. That crime rates are higher in 2007 suggests that race and poverty are not the explanations. I also suggested some alternative explanations, which may or may not be correct.

I threw in a line for Freddie, as well: that guns were, legally speaking, more available to both criminals and the law-abiding alike in the past than today (it is possible that they were too expensive for some criminals, although you'd expect them to have a fairly flat demand curve).

Then you swooped in, and I'm at a loss to discern your argument. Are you saying I'm wrong about race? Wrong about poverty? I see that you're saying I'm wrong about guns, but so far you offer nothing but conclusory assertions to back it up. You also suggest that I'm wrong about family structure, but even taking your linked article at face value, it doesn't preclude a correlation between family structure and crime rate, nor does it dispute that the proportion of out-of-wedlock births has risen in the past 50 years (it disputes the mechanism).

So...what's your point?

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 3:38 PM

The un-PC answer that D.C. is full of blacks would have made sense to the Vietnamese woman if she were at all worldly. In any country with a significant black minority, the blacks tend to commit more crimes than the majority population. That's true of the U.S., Brazil, France, etc.

Lower IQ is probably part of the reason, as it makes it more difficult to find legitimate work. A lower IQ makes it more difficult to anticipate the consequences of various behaviors, so lower-IQ blacks may simply not understand how committing crimes can come back to bite them in the ass.

Black men also tend to have more testosterone than males of other races; this tends to make physically stronger and more aggressive than males of other races. This combination tends to result in poorer impulse control: a young black male is more likely to physically attack someone in response to a perceived slight (feeling "dissed") than, say, a young Japanese-American.

This is all fairly obvious to most people, but perhaps not to alumni of U.Penn and the U. of Chicago's GSB.

Posted by Harry | November 20, 2007 3:46 PM

I would imagine that the Vietnamese government takes a pretty dim view of crime and criminals, and acts against both pretty ruthlessly. No court-appointed attorneys, premium cable, or gyms for Vietnamese criminals, I'll wager. Criminals hopes probably don't reach much higher than avoiding a bullet in the back of the head.

If one is willing to be sufficiently hardnosed, the crime problem is easy to solve, if one is willing to jettison civil rights. OTOH, it's also possible to go overboard on the civil rights side too.

Posted by Occam's Beard | November 20, 2007 4:13 PM

In 1969-70 I spent a year in American Samoa as a VISTA volunteer. The crime rate was quite low, the Samoan culture quite intact, and there were strong communal mores ["shame and honor"] discouraging crime, In 1979 I returned, and the crime rate had sky-rocketed, places that were safe without a second thought were no longer, and the bulk of the populace was caught betwixt traditional Samoan culture and Western culture without sound moorings. It's hard not to link a cultural upheaval with an increase in crime.

Is it surprising that Native American [Samoan cultural upheaval redux!] and black [we'll rip you out of Africa, make you slaves and then wish you Godspeed] crime rates exceed the rates[of the mostly intact culture of] white America?

D.C.'s crime rate isn't high because it's poor [Samoa in 1970 was much poorer]. It's high because the predominant culture is the highly distressed culture of folks who've been ripped from their cultural moorings.

Posted by Jennymoose | November 20, 2007 4:35 PM

[we'll rip you out of Africa, make you slaves and then wish you Godspeed]

You'd think that after 5 or 10 generations or so, one might make the cultural adjustment. I mean, I rather think my Puritan ancestors suffered something of a cultural shift when they left High Ongar and showed up at the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

And I know my mother's father would have had cultural "issues," his father having been sent to America at age 17 from England, them moving from there to Mexico, and his mother, a Mexican girl, having been subsequently chased out of her hometown to Berkeley because she married a gringo.

Slavery was a terrible thing, but I find it hard to blame the slavers for the murder rate in Anacostia.

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 4:51 PM

Jennymoose's explanation has the same basic problem as the poverty explanation: the crime rate was lower and segregated, much poorer black neighborhoods were safer, fifty years closer to slavery than we are now.

I suspect how much crime you have is partly driven by how much crime you have had. Over time, high-crime neighborhoods drive away almost anyone who both fears violence and can get out. The people left behind either have no good choices, or are violent enough themselves not to be intimidated by the violence of their neighborhood.

Posted by albatross | November 20, 2007 6:06 PM

I threw in a line for Freddie, as well: that guns were, legally speaking, more available to both criminals and the law-abiding alike in the past than today

The real question isn't how were they distributed (interesting as that may be), it is how much saturation they achieved. Any numbers on per capita gun ownership, then and now (by poverty level would be ideal)? I suspect that to some degree, types of guns may matter as well (concealable, round capabilities, etc).

As to the greater poverty divide, I'd say that there were also far more powerful behavioral deterrents against black people for both crime and other forms of self-empowerment (such as voting or basic education), which made "keeping your head down" a far-better working strategy than crime. The tilted legal environment was simply a bad environment to get noticed or provide an excuse for persecution.

With enough guns and harsh tactics, you can preserve a huge amount of inquality.

This is, of course, just my impression. I'm too young to have been there, so I only get to see what we all get to see about things like Medgar Evers and George Wallace, and the million other things that there are to read about.

Posted by Brad L | November 20, 2007 6:07 PM

Albatross' comment is well taken. Poverty was greater and crime rates less in black communities fifty years ago. Rob Lyman's comment makes the same basic point, but in terms of one's indivdual adjustment to cultural upheaval.

Obviously, I need to make my point more clearly. Perhaps the best metaphor is to think of what happened to black culture [or Samoan, or Native American] in terms of a body of water. Before "Western" contact, things are placid with change happening slowly and on an "evolutionary" scale. The "tsunami" of interaction with Western culture creates great upheaval, much cultural distress and much social dysfunction. Things subside as the impacted culture [more or less] comes to terms with the tidal wave. Social dysfunction is still greater than pre-contact, but less than at the crest of the wave. But, having disturbed the equilibrium of a "fixed" culture, where folks knew what was expected, after-shocks and ripples will continue indefinitely. Thomas Sowell has written eloquently on the differences in the black culture he grew up in 50 years ago and that of today, and I commend his work to anyone interested in the topic. Suffice it to say, not that cultural upheaval is the only cause of today's dysfunction, only that it is a necessary, but not sufficient, pre-condition to today's widely disparate crime rates.

Posted by Jennymoose | November 20, 2007 6:29 PM

Has nobody noted that perhaps the crime in Vietnam is underreported, both by victims to the police and the government to the people? Whereas DC crime is in the news because a) we talk about our problems b) if it bleeds, it leads, and c) people use crime rates to bolster their political positions and push their pet projects (i.e. high crime rate shows that guns are the problem, or that blacks are violent, that we need to increase welfare, or we need vouchers).

I'm not saying that there is less crime in DC than Hanoi, just that the gap seems greater than it is.

Also, Megan is safer in Vietnam because she's white. The local criminal element would be risking a serious crackdown if they victimized a foreigner, as that kind of thing gets reported, and makes the country look bad.

Posted by Doc | November 20, 2007 6:46 PM

The real question isn't how were they distributed (interesting as that may be), it is how much saturation they achieved. Any numbers on per capita gun ownership, then and now

How they were distributed matters to public policy if not criminology; restricting lawful distribution channels is the usually public-policy response to crime.

I do not have numbers on per-capita gun ownership. In addition, a raw per-capita number isn't really relevant because it may merely reflect large personal collections in fewer households. But even that isn't really what you're after; go to a nearly crime free rural area and you'll find guns in almost every home. Go to a relatively high-crime city and the ownership rate will be lower. Frankly, I don't know what the relevant numbers are.

Types of guns do matter somewhat (concealment is important to both criminals and the law abiding), but note that there hasn't really been a ton of meaningful innovation for decades; almost any gun you can buy today had a similar equivalent in 1950.

Also, I'm not sure that the law was all that concerned about black-on-black crime in 1950. Messing with a white girl was one thing, but would the racists really have cared if one black guy shot another?

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 7:05 PM

Hasn't it occurred to anyone that DC might have a high crime rate because DC is badly governed? That the public services there are incompetently managed, especially the police?

Posted by Michael Brazier | November 20, 2007 7:55 PM

Part of this discussion I find truly amazing are the repeated examples of White-exceptionalism. I think it's safe to say that Whites commit crimes, as well.

The original Q: "why, she asked, did DC have so much crime?"

Was the questioner really asking about 'Anacostia'(?), or, could it be she may have been asking about Pennsylvania Ave.?

This, though, to me, is on the right track: "Albatross' comment is well taken. Poverty was greater and crime rates less in black communities fifty years ago. Rob Lyman's comment makes the same basic point, but in terms of one's indivdual adjustment to cultural upheaval."

We should think about the causes of the 'cultural upheaval', though, many effect us all..

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | November 20, 2007 8:24 PM

I'm mostly against the notion that relative poverty can cause crime and think Rob Lyman is right on the money. But I do think that relative poverty can bar a person fair access to the legal system, including civic suits. Then the situation becomes like Moscow; a 'rule of honor' where businessmen enforce a contract with a 'contract.' You have rule of law, or you have something else.

Jennymoose - Obviously, I need to make my point more clearly.

I think you just need to provide more support for your point.

Posted by Ryan W. | November 20, 2007 9:40 PM

No one has mentioned the obvious explanation: in a very, very poor country, security is extremely cheap (relative to goods). So to the extent that people have nothing, they can't be victims of crime; to the extent that people do have something worth stealing, it's very cheap to protect it. So you get a low-crime equilibrium.

Posted by dsafs | November 20, 2007 10:04 PM

I think it's safe to say that Whites commit crimes, as well.

Nobody doubts that. I (and others) focused on black crime because somebody claimed that blacks were genetically predisposed to crime, and that this predisposition was responsible for DC's high crime rate.

relative poverty can bar a person fair access to the legal system, including civic suits

There is no doubt whatsoever about that. Even relatively wealthy Americans and successful small businesses can't really afford a good lawyer for relatively straightforward lawsuits. It's all done on contingency and by insurance companies, or it isn't done at all.

Posted by Rob Lyman | November 20, 2007 10:05 PM

Rob,

What is creating this gap: "Even relatively wealthy Americans and successful small businesses can't really afford a good lawyer for relatively straightforward lawsuits. It's all done on contingency and by insurance companies, or it isn't done at all."

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | November 20, 2007 11:00 PM

And, sorry that I didn't see this: "Obviously the issue isn't their blackness, so much as the malignant inner-city culture that has taken root since the Great Society programs were implemented. Sadly, those who speak out against those cultural traits, such as Bill Cosby, are seen as kooks in the media and among the folks who make money off perpetuating the divide between poor blacks and the rest of the country."

Posted by Christina | November 20, 2007 1:30 PM

definitely gets to, what I think is, the root of the matter. Old habits die hard, FDR's 'Raw Deal' wouldn't have shown the negative effects, on Culture, that the "Great Society" programs fertilized. Progressive taxation and excessive 'welfare' disbursements http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d055.htm
have turned our, imagined, bell-curve distrubution-Society into one resembling a Cosine Wave..

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | November 20, 2007 11:41 PM

Freddie wrote:

"I don't think poverty alone causes crime (what you point out about poor nations). I don't think lots of guns causes alone causes crime (places like Finland or Canada). But I do suspect that lots of poverty and lots of crime together causes crime, as in Washington, Bogota, or Johannesburg."

Unlike you, Freddie, I have actually lived in Bogota. Believe me, any comparison fails. Unlike the idoitic denizens of the hellish District of Columbia, the people of Bogota have pride and a sense of decency.

Posted by KevinV | November 21, 2007 12:23 AM

Some additional thoughts:

Vietnam doesn't have muggings, but there are a lot of pickpockets, and probably purse (or phone) snatchers. Corruption and prostitution are also very common in Asia.

I'm willing to bet there are security measures in place - heavily armed armored car guards, bars on every apartment window - that wouldn't be there if they weren't needed.

Violent crime might be lower because the penalties, if you're caught, are pretty severe. Capital punishment aside, prison terms are probably longer, and much more unpleasant, in Vietnam than they are in the US.

Posted by Doc | November 21, 2007 12:37 AM

the difference is the poor people in DC are black.

Posted by James Hare | November 21, 2007 12:46 AM

If you have a primarily black neighborhood, you are going to have lots of violent crime. Period. Dallas, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Detroit, D.C., etc. etc. That's not to say that a high black population is a necessary condition for high violent crime, but it is sufficient. Anyone who has looked at the crime statistics that are released by the FBI every year knows the facts, and they reveal, year after year, that blacks commit (on a per capita basis) an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of violent crime in this country. And this discrepancy is all the more striking when one considers that a huge number of violent black males are already locked up- who knows what the black crime rate would be if a bunch of them were released. Blacks do the same in England, which didn't really have a history of slavery or Jim Crow. Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest cesspool on earth, where stories of child rape and cannibalism are not uncommon.

As to why there wasn't a high black crime rate prior to te 1960's, the explanation is pretty simple: blacks who went around raping and murdering other people weren't long for this world. Once blacks were given the same freedom as non-blacks, their crime rates soared and have remained constant ever since. Recall criminals like Eldrige Cleaver, who boasted of how black men target white women for rape (a pattern that is noticeable to anyone who views the crime data). Poverty is certainly a contributing factor to an extent, although let's not forget that the same thing that causes crime might very well be causing the higher crime rates. Plus, there are tons of places in the country filled with uneducated, poor whites, that have low or ordinary crime rates. I can't think of a single, black-majority city in this country that has a low violent crime rate. It just doesn't happen, but people don't like the simple explanation, so they try to invent a complex rationale for the problem.

I'm sure this post will anger and offend a lot of people and elicit a lot of ad hominem attacks, but that's because people who disagree with what I say don't have any facts to use. The truth is my absolute defense. Instead of screaming racism and getting off on how compassionate and tolerant you are, try discovering reality. Thugreport.com

Posted by jim jones | November 21, 2007 12:48 AM

""the same thing that causes crime might very well be causing the higher crime rates" should be "the same thing that causes poverty . . ."

Posted by jim jones | November 21, 2007 12:51 AM

hey how many black people stole billions from investors for their own benefit?

i'd much rather be mugged than have men like ken lay destroy my savings for the future. a mugging is only a little bit of money what white collar criminals like ken lay did destroys my nest egg that i've worked to establish.

but ken lay was white so what he did is excusable...
NOT!

Posted by James Hare | November 21, 2007 12:53 AM

Megan: you were not being oblivious. Hanoi is extremely safe.

Doc:

Crime in Vietnam is not particularly underreported in the media. It makes all the local papers, especially when there's a juicy case like a student stabbing his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend. Because it is non-ideological, it is one of the topics which the increasingly competitive and advertising-hungry local press feels free to report on and to gain circulation with.

One reason for low crime in Vietnam is high levels of social solidarity. Neighborhoods are still to a certain extent large villages. Up until the mid-90s, the Communist system of block wardens functioned strongly -- nosy older people who were assigned to keep tabs on what everyone in the neighborhood was up to. This is a natural outgrowth of Vietnamese village culture which blended easily with Communism, much like similar nosy babushkas in Russia did. Technically the system is still in place, and new arrivals in neighborhoods are supposedly required to register with the police, but this is increasingly ignored.

Still, Vietnam remains an incredibly nosy and gossipy society, and everyone knows things about everyone else. Everyone remarks on the "seven questions" phenomenon -- the obligatory, boring questions every Vietnamese will ask you ("Where are you from, how old are you, are you married, do you have children," etc.). Part of the function of these questions is the rapid spread of information about new arrivals. It is perfectly normal in Vietnam for background conversation to consist of pointing at everyone else in the room and repeating everything you know about them.

As a result, a huge amount of information is constantly in circulation about who people in a neighborhood are and what they're doing. When police decide to exert themselves, they can take advantage of this background information to solve crimes quite efficiently -- recovering stolen goods, etc. Meanwhile, the extended family residential culture means that plenty of retired people (men generally retire here at 60) are constantly hanging about, keeping an eye on things; and this makes most neighborhoods quite safe. It is also certainly true that local People's Committees are very solicitous of the foreign population.

However, there is a serious problem of heroin addiction, and increasing numbers of migrant laborers who aren't tracked by the police and who stay in cheap flophouses, mainly in groups from their home village. This introduces more anonymity and breaks down social solidarity - inevitable, as the country modernizes.

One could invert some of these points and draw conclusions about what leads to crime in places like DC. Though the ability to apply Vietnamese solutions is pretty limited. Obviously American society is individualistic and values privacy, so you'd never get to Vietnamese levels of intrusive social solidarity -- thank god. But on the other hand, one thing that happened in New York City concurrently with the fall in crime there was that people became much more sociable and direct with each other on the street and in the subway. Living there, it really didn't seem like the fall in crime was causing that change; it seemed equally likely to be the other way around, or more like a global shift in the social climate of what it was like to be on the street. So that seems kind of worth thinking about. What's the social climate like on the street in DC? Do people look each other in the eye, greet each other, etc? I'm curious.

Posted by brooksfoe | November 21, 2007 12:59 AM

"hey how many black people stole billions from investors for their own benefit?"

Awesome. Responding to stuff like this is like shooting fish in a barrel. The reason blacks don't commit an astronomical amount of white collar crime is because white collar positions have a large selection bias on the basis of IQ. You can't commit a crime you're not in a position to commit. It's hard for LaJarell to engage in embezzlement when he's sippiing 40's in the ghetto. Take a look at how African governments are run and the rampant corruption in them- that might clue you in a bit.

Posted by Jim Jones | November 21, 2007 1:03 AM

Oh, Doc, missed your second post, which is basically completely wrong. There are no bars on windows in Hanoi. There are almost no pickpockets or purse snatchers -- in this respect the difference with every other developing country I've ever been in is striking. With such a huge wealth gap, you would expect to see exponentially more pickpockets. People leave their bikes on the street unlocked. They're crappy bikes, but still. As for prison terms, the US has a vastly larger proportion of its population in prison than Vietnam does. That's because...uh, crime here is really low.

Looking down East Asia, one notes that in Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam and Singapore, street crime is extremely low. Confucian societies. It's a broad generalization, but stereotypes usually have some grounding in reality.

Posted by brooksfoe | November 21, 2007 1:12 AM

"hey how many black people stole billions from investors for their own benefit?"

Actually, blacks commit white collar crimes at a disproportionately higher rate than whites. And there have been prominent black crooks in the investment business, e.g., Joseph Jett.

Posted by Fred | November 21, 2007 1:47 AM

Isn't the explanation pretty much "drug use"? I seem to recall that the overwhelming majority of crime in DC was connected, either directly (drug dealing, drug murders, etc) or indirectly (people stealing to get money for drugs) to the drug trade.

I guess that's kind of punting on the question, though, since then you need to explain why drugs are such a problem.

Posted by Dan | November 21, 2007 2:10 AM

"What's the social climate like on the street in DC? Do people look each other in the eye, greet each other, etc? I'm curious."

I came from a place that had a reputation for being very sociable.

I now live in DC and can say that the answer is an emphatic HELL NO.

Noone looks anyone else in the eye, even on the college campuses. Looking at the wrong person is the easiest way to get in an argument. I'm a relatively big guy and I've been harassed walking down streets by obviously mentally disturbed and aggressive people.

The buses are even worse. Take today. On the way to work, I sat behind a guy who was talking to himself, shifting in his seat as if he was having an imaginary conversation with himself. On the way back from work, a homeless/deranged guy sat down next to me (I was reading), sat on my sports coat, called me a fuckhead and then babbled on at high volume with another homeless guy across the bus about nonsense.

And noone will say a thing about this, because everyone's just trying not to attract these bozos' attention.

Posted by MlR | November 21, 2007 2:11 AM

That's an abnormally bad day. But it is a pretty usual occurrence on the buses (at least once or twice a week, out of about 8 or so trips). FWIW, a simple observed fact is that the vast majority of those who make themselves nuisances to the rest of the bus passengers are African-Americans. The majority of African-Americans on the buses do not do so, but the majority of those who do are. Take that for what it's worth.

Posted by MlR | November 21, 2007 2:18 AM

The murder rate in Dominica and Mauritius is below the US's. The murder rates in Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus are in the top-10. Thailand's is also above the US's.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Although Dominica does have the highest overall crime rate.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

Second was New Zealand and third Finland.

The former Soviet Republics of Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus generally come out high in violent crime by most measures. There are several nations I'm aware of in Africa that have relatively low crime rates. So the racial explanation is just racist, not merely "un-PC."

Judging by many measures I've read the Vietnamese are comparatively optimistic about the future and satisfied with their lives. The poor in American cities often feel resentment and a lack of faith in their own future. In addition to that children raised without fathers have a higher rate of crime and I'm pretty certain that happens more among the American poor than the Vietnamese poor. Lastly hard-drug use might be a factor. Neighboring Thailand is, I believe, bigger in the heroin trade than Vietnam. Bangkok has some very crime-ridden areas. (Likewise DC has some very nice areas. I went their at 13 because I won a contest. I was terrified because believed it was like a war-zone. Instead all I saw was pretty houses, monuments, and lots of trees. I was protected from the crime areas as a contest winner)

Posted by Thomas R | November 21, 2007 2:33 AM

"Judging by many measures I've read the Vietnamese are comparatively optimistic about the future and satisfied with their lives."

I forgot that I mentioned this for another reason. The people of Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus are highly unsatisfied with their lives by most measures. They are not necessarily hopeful for their future and many see their best days as behind them. Among men drunkenness is high and drunk men are a major source of crime for many nations. Essentially when you have a large number of pessimistic and resentful men with substance abuse problems you get high crime or anti-social behavior. (Women are universally less than men. Trust me you won't find a country where even one-third of prisoners are female)

Posted by Thomas R | November 21, 2007 2:42 AM

"Women are universally less [criminal] than men."

I ommitted the word "criminal", sorry. I've been accused of misogyny here so that might look like a terrible ommission.

Posted by Thomas R | November 21, 2007 2:43 AM

The murder rate in Ghana is less than half that in the US (2.5 versus 5.5 per 100,000, as of 2000). All other crime statistics make Ghana look even safer in comparison, but it's legitimate to claim that other crimes might not be reported as frequently in Ghana. Still, given that Ghana's population is 100% black while the US's is 10% black, it's pretty hard to explain murder rate by negritude.

The country with the highest murder rate in sub-Saharan Africa is the country with the largest white population: South Africa. It is also the richest.

I feel that I shouldn't really have to be saying something this obvious, but it appears that some people think there's something cool and rebellious in revealing their own disgusting racism.

Posted by brooksfoe | November 21, 2007 3:31 AM

brooksfoe:

That's what I get for extrapolating from other experience in Asia. In China, there are bars on the windows, security guards everywhere, and while I haven't been targeted, there is street crime here.

It's also much less common than in the US, as far as I can see, although there are areas that you'd be advised to avoid.

Posted by Doc | November 21, 2007 6:41 AM

DC has so much crime because so many people there feel entitled to be thugs

Poor, not really. Poor has very little to do with it. I have spent LOTS of time among the locals of DC (smoking crack out of a pipe made from beer can,etc.) Many years ago, but nothing has changed

People act violently and antisocially because they feel like they are supposed to and entitled to act that way.

Posted by Jozef | November 21, 2007 8:10 AM

Mr. Brooksfoe, I do like good news. Please share with us your source on Ghanaian crime.

One reason I can see for the lower crime rate in Ghana is their willingness to drive out, punish and even kill witches.

See http://tinyurl.com/37dgux for a Guardian article on the subject. There are countless others.

Most Western people see witch-killing as a crime and thus it artificially inflates their crime statistics. When old lady witches are killed in America and their land taken, we treat that as a crime (go figure!) and not as it is in Ghana: simple justice.

In Ghana they beat people who are demon-possessed and cure them. In the USA we charge them with crimes or institutionalize them. Again this artificially inflates our crime figures versus Ghana's.

If in America we blamed demons (as we should) instead of the people possessed by demons, we would have lower crime rates, too.

Posted by Big Bill | November 21, 2007 9:12 AM

Some reasons why DC, and other American urban hell-holes, have high crime:
1. Generations of a welfare-bred entitlement ethos and loss of individual responsibility.
2. A local government which not only refuses to maintain minimum standards of public order, but has even suffered depraved criminals like Marion Barry in leadership.
3. An all-pervasive, cretinous hip-hop "culture" that encourages criminality for the ultimate benefit of the so-called "entertainment industry."
4. A large percentage of residents who are, for various reasons, manifestly unable to maintain the standards of behavior, let alone the physical infrastucture, of cities created by people with vastly different capabilities and cultural priorities.
5. The desperate residents have been utterly abandoned by their betters who cringe at the notion of holding people to any standard of moral conduct.
6. A decades-long assault on the traditional fonts of personal and public morals, the Churches.
What is not pertinant to this discusion:
1. Poverty: SUV driving, drug-dealing, gun-toting thugs have no recourse to this excuse or any of its tortured variations.
2. White collar and organized crime: When South Philadelphia was heavily Italian and Mafia-saturated, it was one of the safest parts of the city. Little old ladies are not afraid to walk down the street because of Ken Lay. Such crimes are deplorable, but they do not make life unbearable for ordinary people who simply want to live in peace.
As for I.Q., while less-bright people may be more easily frustrated and less able to control their emotions, they still know right from wrong and can still be held to moral standards. Those who understand the absolute necessity of civic order must unapologetically assert such standards and heavily censure their violation.

Posted by M | November 21, 2007 9:30 AM

It's always interesting to me when people want to reduce a complex issue down to one absolute explanantion, when in fact it's probably a series of explanations taken together. Nearly everyone here is right to some degree, disregarding Jim Jones, who certainly has refined the art of being impressively wrong.

There is no ignoring the great amounts of crimes committed by blacks, and mostly upon other blacks. But to place it in the proper context one can hardly ignore the residue from slavery.

Essentially we have a portion of people who are willing to say that enslaving a population for hundreds of years, and then, once free, disenfranchising them from the economic and political life of the country until 50 years ago, should NOT have an impact.

Which makes the opposite argument, that "my family worked hard for generations and generations and that is why we are where we are today" impossible as well.

So certain automatic considerations for most people--getting a solid education, going to whatever college you please, buying a home in whatever neighborhood you like, getting a loan for that home and seeing no crosses burning on your lawn, and getting a good insurance policy so the next generation gets a leg up--were not so consistently available to the black community for half of the 20th Century. And again, that's aside from the actual act of slavery, which by and large prevented economic advancement and asset accummulation.

Is all of that of no advantage to one part of the population, or a disadvantage (atop the psychological damage) to blacks?

Thus someone's black grandfather might have had a greatly reduced set of choices and choice benefits than the average person's grandfather.

And from there, you fold in the other factors:

Family disintegration
The acceptance of bad behavior as the apex of expressing "blackness"
The drug influence, which acts as disinsentive to real work.
Lack of police presence due to resources, institutional issues and black apathy/hatred.
Urban living
Several generations of poor education stacked,
giving the aura of low IQ--essentially like raising a child inside a box.
Poor health measures and moral choices (mothers
using drugs), again giving the aura or actuality of mental deficiencies in offspring.

All of this, (and more) taken together make for a brew that one might not find in a Vietnam or Cambodia. And one cannot ignore the whole cultural/moral overlay that might make, say, Asian nations (with their Buddhism and respect for authority and elders) different from Africa (with its mishmash) in the same way the broader U.S. culture (dominated by whites) might sustain a type of morality/culture that constrasts with certain black inner city mindsets.

In other words, it's complex, and not easily quantified or resolved.

Posted by Finn | November 21, 2007 10:14 AM

Drugs, not poverty. We really let that get out of hand.

In Japan they kept a lid on