Slashdot Mirror

But the what study indicates that the presence of the guns is the cause for that?

There are several. A famous one is the Kleck study. There's also the 1994 report prepared by the US Department of Justice. Instead of asking rhetorical questions, why not actually Google this issue and see what you find.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/165476.pdf

There is no evidence that gun possession is a net positive and while there's plenty of evidence that fewer firearms means fewer homicides internationally, there's no evidence that taking the guns away would solve America's violence problem, either.

The first two points are incorrect, but I agree with the third point.

Remember, we live in a world where people get shot, or stabbed, or clubbed, or stomped, or beaten to death with fists. And most times an armed citizen is able to defend him/her self with a gun, nobody gets shot. The bad guy stops the attack, the cops take the bad guy away, nobody dead. This suggests a possible mechanism by which legal firearms lower the homicide rate.

The people who want to ban all firearms lie about firearms, all the time. One of the lies is that allowing ordinary people to own and carry guns will increase the murder rate, when the evidence is clear that it does the opposite.

There are many places in the USA (and in the world) where guns were banned and violent crime rates increased. Correlation does not prove causation... maybe the guns were banned due to the increases in crime, and the gun bans failed to stop the increases? But there are absolutely no places where guns were banned and violent crime went down.

England had a low murder rate. Then England banned guns. Then England had a low murder rate. (And then the murder rate increased in England...) There is absolutely no evidence that banning guns reduced violence in England.

People will tell you that more people are shot in the USA than in England. However, more people are beaten to death by fists in the USA than are murdered by all causes combined in England.

Banning guns does not lower violent crime.

rape allegations are almost never false

How exactly do you determine this? Most rape cases are complete "he said, she said" cases. Given that in 25% of the rape cases where DNA evidence is available the main suspect is exonerated, I'd say your "almost never" is completely wrong. And that's not even counting cases where 1) no DNA evidence is available or 2) consensual sex is followed by a cry of rape.

I agree with alien88 and so does the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ, FBI and other U.S. and British government agencies. This page has a nice summary of the studies including:

Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising -- A Report to the U.S. Congress http://www.ncjrs.org/works/index.htm This lengthy report has several references to lighting and crime which indicate that lighting's effect on crime is inconclusive. See chapter seven. These statements are contained in its conclusions: "We can have very little confidence that improved lighting prevents crime, particularly since we do not know if offenders use lighting to their advantage. In the absence of better theories about when and where lighting can be effective, and rigorous evaluations of plausible lighting interventions, we cannot make any scientific assertions regarding the effectiveness of lighting. In short, the effectiveness of lighting is unknown."

Having been the victim of a couple of car break-ins because we didn't have the outside lights on While I'm on the topic of Post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, could it be also that less light pollution would lead to more people out at night enjoying the milky way (and other wonders) and therefore less crime? I force criminals in my back garden to either use a flashlight or risk tripping over all the junk I have back there. Why give them a convenience light?

In 1993 Doom was released. Since that date, violent crimes have been on a steady decline.

http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/profile .asp

I'm not attributing it to gaming, but it makes you wonder...

Boy, are you off base! The US Dept. of Justice did a study (note: link is to a PDF) about 10 years ago which determined that when parents teach their children responsible use of guns, their rate of ALL crimes (not just gun crimes) was 10% lower than children raised in strictly gun-free homes, their rate of gun crimes was 0% (vs. 1% for gun-free homes), and their rate of drug use was 2% lower than children raised in gun-free homes.

Re: The lady maybe never touched the computer, but what about the kids? She's responsible for their actions!

You sure? Marie Lindor and Patricia Santangelo both live in New York.

"Today, all States but New Hampshire and New York have provisions holding parents civilly responsible for youth crime, with an average maximum recovery amount of $4,100." - Parent Responsibity Laws.
IANAL

Where do I begin?...

The Department of Justice sponsored 1994 survey "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms", this survey estimated that 1.5 million defensive gun uses occured per year by law abiding citizens.

http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/165476.pdf

Fatal gun accidents declined by nearly 60% from 1975 to 1995, while the number of guns per capita increased by nearly 40%. Fatal gun accidents involving children ages 0-14 fell from 495 in 1975, to under 250 in 1995. According to the National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 2001 Edition, estimated deaths due to fatal gun accidents were approximately 600, this covered ages 0-75+. Suffocation by ingested objects caused approximately 3,400 deaths, drowning 3,900, poisoning by solids and liquids 11,700.

According to the book (Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control, 2001) by Gary Kleck, Florida State University criminologist, using the figures from the Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey (1992-1998).

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm

"These data indicate that victims who use guns for self-protection actually face less favorable circumstances than other victims, and that the post-self-protection injury rates for defensive gun use, low though they are, may still be misleadingly high compared to tother self-protection measures because victims who used guns faced tougher crime circumstances. More dangerous situations apparently prompt victims to adopt more dangerous self-protection measures. Two pieces of information available in the NCVS support this view. First, victims who used guns were substantially more likely than victims in general or victims using other self-protection measures to face offenders armed with guns -- 32.7 percent of victims who attacked the offender with a gun, and 21.8 percent of those who threatened the offender with a gun, and 21.8 percent of those who threatened the offender with a gun, faced offenders with guns, compared to only 6.8 percent of all victims who used self-protection measures, and 2.2 percent of all victims. Second, victims who used guns were more likely to face multiple offenders -- 33.2 percent of victims who attacked offenders with a gun and 34.5 percent of those who threatened with a gun confronted multiple adversaries, compared to 20.6 percent of all those who used self-protection measures, and 6.2 percent of all victims. These findings are consistent with the view that crime circumstances likely to appear more dangerous to victims are more likely to push victims into using guns. They are contrary to the speculation that crime outcomes are better for gun-wielding victims merely because other circumstances of the crime made successful outcomes more likely." pages 291-292

"The risk of being a victim of a fatal gun accident can be better appreciated if it is compared to a more familiar risk...Each year about five hundred children under the age of five accidentally drown in residential swimming pools, compared to about forty killed in gun accidents, despite the fact that there are only about five million households with swimming pools, compared to at least 43 million with guns. Thus, based on owning households, the risk of a fatal accident among small children is over one hundred times higher for swimming pools than for guns." page 296

"Most gun accidents occur in the home, many (perhaps most) of them involving guns kept for defense. However, very few accidents occur in connection with actual defensive uses of guns. Gun accidents are generally committed by unusually reckless people with records of heavy drinking, repeated involvement in automobile crashes, many traffic citations, and prior arrests for assault. Gun accidents, then, involve a rare and atypical subset of the population, as both shooters and victims. They rarely involve children, and most commonly involve adolescents and young adults." page 321

IANTOP, but it's a pretty well established fact that juries convict innocent people all the time. DNA testing is helping a little nowadays, though. There is some good information here, here and here.

Penalties for violation of these laws include increased participation by parents in juvenile proceedings; financial responsibility for restitution payments and court costs; financial responsibility for detention, treatment, and supervisory costs; participation in treatment, counseling, or other diversion programs; and criminal responsibility and possible jail time for parents found negligent in their supervision.

I never read anything about corruption regarding ShotSpotter, nor did I find any mentions in news archives.

The article I found just mentions that there was significant debate in Redwood City before buying the system from Trilon for $85K. "Opponents, however, claim it is a boondoggle and that the money could be better spent elsewhere, such as on hiring more police officers." (SFChronicle, 3/18/97, "Redwood City Endorses Gunshot Locator System")

The National Institute of Justice funded a study of the ShotSpotter system in Redwood City and Dallas.

The December 1999 report can be found on the NIJ website:

http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/179274.pdf

The report compared Alliant's SECURES system in Dallas to Trilon's ShotSpotter system in Redwood City.

It sounds like they had a lot of fun with this test in RWC:

Of the 31 field trial events, 8 tested the MP5 assault rifle, 13 tested the .38 caliber pistol rounds, and 10 tested the 12 gauge shotgun. The technology annunciated shotgun tests at the highest rate (90 percent), followed by pistol tests (77 percent), and the MP5 assault rifle (63 percent). Overall, the ShotSpotter technology annunciated nearly 80 percent of the test shots (true positives) and failed to annunciate random gunfire events about 20 percent of the time (false negatives).

Dallas chose not to allow the firing of blank rounds on random street corners:

The [Redwood City] police department approved the firing of test blanks under controlled conditions to measure the performance of the technology in June 1997. Similar permissions were not granted during the field test of the SECURES system in Dallas.

If you're wondering why Redwood City would be picked, keep in mind that neighboring East Palo Alto had the highest per capita murder rate in the country after a string of drug murders in 1992. (The homicide rate is lower now.)

The NIJ report page is pretty entertaining reading:

• Duress Systems in Corrections Facilities
• Voice Translators for Law Enforcement
• DNA in "Minor" Crimes Yields Major Benefits in Public Safety
• Drug Detection in Prison Mailrooms
• Test Results for Software Write Block Tools: RCMP HDL V0.7 (really boring)

Here's an evaluation. Median location error is about 25 feet. That at least gets it down to two or three houses.

I met the designer of this system some years ago. The original prototype worked using microphones and hard-wired phone connections for each microphone. The signal from each microphone was transmitted using an analog FM carrier system over the phone line designed to trade frequency response for dynamic range. The system had terrible audio frequency response but huge dynamic range, so that pulse events like gunshots come through cleanly without overload. When you have enough dynamic range, gunfire is easy to recognize, because the leading edge of the pulse is so sharp. Few other sounds have that form.

The microphones are up on telephone poles and atop buildings, and they're omnidirectional. So they mostly pick up loud bangs, wind, and aircraft noise. The original pole units were entirely analog, phone line powered, and very dumb. The original central processing system was a PC with some data acquisition cards running LabView. Since then, it's become fancier, with better integration with mapping programs and transmission of gunfire locations to PDA-type devices. But it's not really very complicated.

Feeding the fascination many /. readers may have for the escalation of technique and counter-technique beteween hackers and computer forensics experts may not be as valuable as keeping clues about how to avoid getting caught out of the hands of the hackers but I just can't resist... Sciencedaily.com pointed me to something hackers and other criminals might want to study carefully: the PDF guidebook that NIST wrote for the DOJ's first responders to computer crime scenes. Though it has John Ashcroft's name at the top, a glance at the document's time line shows that it was authored by experts mostly from outside the DOJ and completed before the current administration's appointments: the imprimatur of Justice Department on the document may not be ironic.

Where's the study? You give specific statistics but you can't link to the source you got them from? Liar.

Superdude,

Once upon a time, I saw the FBI data mentioned, though that was some time ago. Since I couldn't find it, I didn't reference it in my own post, but instead linked to the National Institute of Justice study on civilian firearms ownership, which contains a section on defensive gun uses. You can read my post (and the included link) at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=121564&cid=102 30861 or read the study directly at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/165476.pdf

I might disagree with your politics (not that I'm familiar with them, but given that we're on opposite sides of a gun control debate I think it's a fair assumption) but unlike some others, I think at least we can have a civil discourse in which we cite our references instead of assuming the other side is familiar with them, and insulting them if they aren't. Shouting people down is no way to hold a debate, and certainly no way to win potential converts to your side of an issue.

Where the heck did you get those stats?

In 1997, the National Institude of Justice released a study entitled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms." You can read this study at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/165476.pdf. There is a section in it about defensive gun uses. According to a study done in 1994 by Gary Kleck and Mark Gertz, there are over 2.5 million defensive gun uses in the United States every year. Personally, I find that number a bit hard to believe--their sample size is quite small. OTOH, the National Crime Victimization Survey data extrapolates to 108,000 defensive gun uses. I suspect the truth is somewhere between these numbers. In any case, the study is worth reading no matter what side of the fence you're on.

A dog is a good idea because it's a great deterrent, and a good alarm. Then call 911.

Calling 911 doesn't work when you live out in the sticks and the mean police response time to your residence is more than half an hour. Remember, for the most part the police don't stop crimes in progress--they pick up the pieces afterward. Self defense is YOUR responsibility.

Elsewhere someone posted that the figure was 7 million guns for 10 million households in Canada. According to this, there are as many guns in the US as *adults* (presumably there is more than one adult in most households). Even if the Canadian number should be 14 million guns (as suggested here), this is still less than the number of adults (22 million according to this).

well, crime index rate is down 25% since 1993, despite the continued growth of 'violence in the media' during that time. (crime stats).

additionally, violence amongst children is down dramatically from 1994, in many cases to lower-than-1980 levels. (violent crime by age,property crime by age)

I think we can all agree now that enough kids since 1980 have had their hands on violent games and movies to have created a statistical trend.

So if 'violence in the media' actually had an effect on crime, it would've been borne out by now. But that sort of effect isn't seen.

So unless we can determine a way in which Vin Diesel's violence is different than Sly Stallone's violence, or Rockstar's violence is different than Carmack's violence -- we have no choice but to accept that the numbers don't support any claims of an erosion of values or explosion of violence.

Or, we could classify violence to mean something other than actual reported violence. I'm sure that by choosing subjective definitions of what 'violence' is between children, and reporting selectively, we could come up with satisfactory results. We could probably even do well-received 'expose' on the evening news during sweeps.

But 'violence' as defined in those studies covers every recent behavioral 'trend' that the sensationalist media has blamed on 'violent movies/tv/videogames'.(nonnegligent homicide, aggravated assault, forcible rape, robbery, larceny-theft, arson, and motor vehicle theft)

So perhaps there is no actual weight to this 'outcry' over violent media. Perhaps it is motivated by something other than legitimate concern for society?

well, crime index rate is down 25% since 1993, despite the continued growth of 'violence in the media' during that time. (crime stats).

additionally, violence amongst children is down dramatically from 1994, in many cases to lower-than-1980 levels. (violent crime by age,property crime by age)

I think we can all agree now that enough kids since 1980 have had their hands on violent games and movies to have created a statistical trend.

So if 'violence in the media' actually had an effect on crime, it would've been borne out by now. But that sort of effect isn't seen.

So unless we can determine a way in which Vin Diesel's violence is different than Sly Stallone's violence, or Rockstar's violence is different than Carmack's violence -- we have no choice but to accept that the numbers don't support any claims of an erosion of values or explosion of violence.

Or, we could classify violence to mean something other than actual reported violence. I'm sure that by choosing subjective definitions of what 'violence' is between children, and reporting selectively, we could come up with satisfactory results. We could probably even do well-received 'expose' on the evening news during sweeps.

But 'violence' as defined in those studies covers every recent behavioral 'trend' that the sensationalist media has blamed on 'violent movies/tv/videogames'.(nonnegligent homicide, aggravated assault, forcible rape, robbery, larceny-theft, arson, and motor vehicle theft)

So perhaps there is no actual weight to this 'outcry' over violent media. Perhaps it is motivated by something other than legitimate concern for society?

It's only an issue for pot smokers.

It's an issue for taxpayer as well. The DEA recieved $1,897,300,000.00 for FY2003. The FBI spent $474,119,000.00 fighting "domestic sources of drugs" (see Goal Five). How much do you think your State Police are spending on helicopters to find the growers? How much are your local police spending to bust the pot smokers? How effective have these measures been? Are there fewer pot smokers than there were in 1973 (the year the DEA was established)? Even if we agree that many addicting drugs should be illegal, is it worth it to spend huge amounts of money on combatting the marijuana trade when that money could be spent keeping cocaine and heroine from crossing the borders?

You like spending money on (ineffective) prohibition? Go ahead, just quit spending mine.

In 1998 (only year I could find) drug enforcement in the US was 15.9 billion dollars.

So... given that the numbers pretty much speak for themselves, how can you NOT agree that if anyone is to be "tracked" or otherwise given "special treatment" in these cases it should NOT be parents of girls? I mean, if you are going to single anyone out, who better than those who have access to, and power in the lives of, the most frequent victims?

The local TV station ran a fearmongering "special report" on the evening news outlining all the "dangers children face." They had policemen hang out at playgrounds and filmed them coaxing young girls into a minivan while their terrified mothers looked on. They talked about the "online predators" that will lure your children into real life meetings and then kill them. They talked about all these terrible fates that await any child not held under it's mother's wing 24 hours a day - in short, they talked about all sorts of terrible fates that, according to the FBI's own numbers, only a tiny number of children meet with each year.

Of course, what they didn't mention - and what is rarely mentioned in typical propoganda like this - is the fact that tens of thousands of children are molested each year by their own parents, or by a relative, or by a "friend" close to the family (teacher, coach, counselor, babysitter, etc). There is no "typical" when it comes to people who fuck children, and those rapists hanging about in the bushes represent a tiny, tiny sliver of the greater problem. Psychological studies have also revealed that at least (or as much as) a third of the adults convicted of molesting children are not pedophiles, but simply sexual opportunists.

Consider the most violent extreme in this example: of the 2100 children killed in 1997, 40% of the killers identified were family members, 45% by someone known to the child - and a whopping 15% (slightly over 300) were killed by strangers. No, talking about the realities wouldn't do well at all because it would only make everyone much more aware that it's not "those people" doing these crimes, it's anyone you know and there's little way to tell until it's too late. Is your next door neighbor fucking his eight year old? How do you know? The trajic fact is that this witch hunt mentality does nothing at all to protect children and, in fact, only helps blind society at large to the truth; while "concerned parents" (sheep brainwashed by the evening news) go on worrying about the evil "pedophile" lurking in the bushes no one believes Mr. Johnson, the special ed. teacher next door would be fucking his little girl - he's just "not that type."

If congress is not willing to declare war, we are not fighting a war. Terrorists threats are nothing new. There were previous terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. There was a terrorist attack on the federal building in Oklahoma. There were terrorist attacks at the Olympics in Atlanta. There were terrorist attacks during the civil rights movement. There were terrorist attacks back when the U.S. was founded.

There's no way in hell that putting all of the "enemy combatants" (Padilla) and the "material witnesses"...through the criminal justice system will work.

There are two million people locked up in the United States (there is no country in the world where you are more likely to be throw in jail than in the United States). If every single one of those 2,000,000 people served 100 years, the government would need to lock up 20,000 people per year to keep 2,000,000 people behind bars. The fact that no one servers a full 100 years means that we lock up a lot more than 20,000 people per year. If we were to end the ridiculous war on drugs, we could lock up 10,000 terrorists per year without devoting any more resources to our justice system. In the two years since the WTC attacks, the government has not apprehended anywhere close to 10,000 people. In short, our justice system can easily handle it. I think Bush just wants to throw 5,000 people at the justice system, all at the same time so he can use it as an excuse to appoint more judges.

A federal grand jury comprised of citizens with Top Secret clearance would not be the easiest thing to convene, but far from impossible

A grand jury in which the government decides who can or cannot be trusted with secret information is not a jury at all. Besides that, all grand jury proceedings are confidential anyway.

...and a small price to pay for helping to uphold our nation's ideas of justice.

Our nation's ideas of justice involve the right to a public trial. We do not consider it justice when a defendent does not have the opportunity to challenge the evidence against him. And the public can not have confidence in the system if we can not see the system in action.

The government must be liable and accountable for any damages caused by false arrests and detentions.

This would be a good thing. We should do this today, but for some reason we don't. 25% of people charged with rape are probably innocent. From that study:

...the extent of factually incorrect convictions in our system must be much greater than anyone wants to believe.

If our open system, with all kinds of safeguards to protect the innocent results in 25% of suspects being innocent, what sort of system will we have without accountability, due process, or other safeguards?

This American study seems to suggest that a) abductions by strangers are rare, and b) teenagers are much more likely to be abducted than younger children.

Or more specifically, here:
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/196352.pdf

National Institute of Justice Firearms and Crime page.
National Criminal Justice Reference Center. The most useful functions are abstract search and full-text search. Try searching for "firearms" or "assault weapons," etc.

From Guns Used in Crime (1995):

- From 1899 to 1993, 223 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. 79M rifles, 77M handguns, 66M shotguns.
- Criminals prefer easily concealable handguns over any other type of firearm.
- 1.26 million handguns remain in the National Crime Information Center stolen gun file.
- 240,000 machineguns are in the National Firearms registry. Of these, 7,700 remain in the stolen gun file.
- From 1982 to 1993, 687 police officers were killed by firearms other than their own. Of these, 25% were killed with a .38 caliber handgun. 12% with .357 caliber, 9.5% with 9mm, 7.4% with 12 gauge shotgun.
- A 1991 survey of state prison inmates throughout the country found that assault weapons such as Uzi, AK, AR-15, etc. were carried by less than 1% of the inmates during the commission of the crime for which they were incarcerated.

National Institute of Justice Firearms and Crime page.
National Criminal Justice Reference Center. The most useful functions are abstract search and full-text search. Try searching for "firearms" or "assault weapons," etc.

From Guns Used in Crime (1995):

- From 1899 to 1993, 223 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. 79M rifles, 77M handguns, 66M shotguns.
- Criminals prefer easily concealable handguns over any other type of firearm.
- 1.26 million handguns remain in the National Crime Information Center stolen gun file.
- 240,000 machineguns are in the National Firearms registry. Of these, 7,700 remain in the stolen gun file.
- From 1982 to 1993, 687 police officers were killed by firearms other than their own. Of these, 25% were killed with a .38 caliber handgun. 12% with .357 caliber, 9.5% with 9mm, 7.4% with 12 gauge shotgun.
- A 1991 survey of state prison inmates throughout the country found that assault weapons such as Uzi, AK, AR-15, etc. were carried by less than 1% of the inmates during the commission of the crime for which they were incarcerated.

National Institute of Justice Firearms and Crime page.
National Criminal Justice Reference Center. The most useful functions are abstract search and full-text search. Try searching for "firearms" or "assault weapons," etc.

From Guns Used in Crime (1995):

- From 1899 to 1993, 223 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. 79M rifles, 77M handguns, 66M shotguns.
- Criminals prefer easily concealable handguns over any other type of firearm.
- 1.26 million handguns remain in the National Crime Information Center stolen gun file.
- 240,000 machineguns are in the National Firearms registry. Of these, 7,700 remain in the stolen gun file.
- From 1982 to 1993, 687 police officers were killed by firearms other than their own. Of these, 25% were killed with a .38 caliber handgun. 12% with .357 caliber, 9.5% with 9mm, 7.4% with 12 gauge shotgun.
- A 1991 survey of state prison inmates throughout the country found that assault weapons such as Uzi, AK, AR-15, etc. were carried by less than 1% of the inmates during the commission of the crime for which they were incarcerated.

Wrong.
Criminals, in general, aren't very good with guns.
Really, they're awful. Do you think the average thug actually takes his 'gat' to the range to practice?
Take your average NRA member and your average violent felon, put them at fifty paces and see who walks away.
The whole "having a gun doesn't help you" thing is a total myth. Just like that study that claimed "a gun in the home is X times more likely to kill a faimly member that protect you." That study was b.s. and it was debunked long ago. bonus link Yet another link

You're going to have a tough time thinking up a scenario where having a gun wouldn't help against the average mugger, burglar, stupid gang member, etc.
Ex: A mugging. I have no warning. Even if someone get's the drop on me, they wouldn't know I have a gun, concealed. I give them my wallet, they turn around, and I pull out my gun. I win. He either freezes and gets arrested (so I get my wallet back), or he tries to draw (in which case I shoot him and still get my wallet back). Note that I can also make the choice not to draw the gun at all, in which case I am not any worse off than I would have been without one.

I don't think guns are for everybody, but they were invented for a reason, and that reason was to improve your chances of coming out of a life or death battle with another person. They're pretty damned good at what they were designed for. That's why police forces and militaries have been using them for hundreds of years.
I think your characterization of your average gun owner waving his gun around and shooting his kid is ridiculous. Yes, kids get killed with their parent's guns, but this is because they find the gun and shoot themselves, not because their parent shot them. It's also criminaly negligent and anyone who has an unlocked gun, in the same house as a kid who doesn't understand guns, should be charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

Yes, that happens all the time...not. Why do you think that stuff makes big news? It's extremely rare. Your child will not be safe with this watch or the shock collar or the leash, or ... There is just no 100% safety and you have to accept that.

Statistically, children are most often abducted by someone they know. Kidnapping is very very rare according to crime statistics:

2000 Juvenile Justice report on kidnapping

1,214 kidnapping cases in the U.S. in 1997. That is a miniscule number and if you think big brother wrist watches are going to prevent them, you're deluding yourself into a false sense of safety.

I understand that parents want to protect their children, but in "the real world", abductions are exceedingly rare. "One tenth of one percent of all the crimes against individuals".

There are real problems that affect children and imiginary problems borne of paranoia. I believe that children are better served by targetting more statistically significant problems like poverty, drug abuse, parental abuse, and so on. And finally, don't forget that it's my neighborhood too when you whip out the "if it was your child!!!" bullshit. It's not that I don't care; I care very much. It's just that I'm realistic and concerned with more important problems that can actually be addressed. I find it ridiculous that I have to shoulder the burden of child paranoia by funding TV controls, CD labelling, and all that stuff, that does nothing. Get those kids out of that dysfunctional family with the alcoholic father that beats them or the drug-addicted mother that can barely afford food. I mean, really, _that_ is more reality than the kidnapping silliness.

-Kevin

The five years preceding 1999 showed a drop in crime statistics purely because of broader social trends, particularly a general increase in prosperity, plus a marked increase in police activity in troubled areas, such as South Central LA. (Watts is now an armed police camp, inundated with social workers.)

Some of their conclusions include:

"Few juveniles were arrested for violent crime"

"Juvenile arrests for violence in 1999 were the lowest in a decade"

"Juvenile arrests for property crimes declined substantially in recent years"

"The juvenile share of the crime problem decreased in 1999"

"After years of relative stability in the number of juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests, the increase in these arrests between 1988 and 1994 focused national attention on the problem of juvenile violence. After peaking in 1994, these arrests dropped each year from 1995 through 1999. The number of juvenile arrests in 1999 was the lowest since 1988 for all Violent Crime Index offenses..."

Their data sources:

Analysis of arrest data from unpublished FBI reports for 1980 through 1997 and from Crime in the United States reports for 1998 and 1999 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999 and 2000, respectively); population data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1980 to 1999 [machine-readable data files available online, released April 11, 2000].

If you're interested, it's a good read. It contradicts a lot of popular sentiment, but provides justification for its conclusions.


My mom is not a Karma whore!

Oops... correct URL: http://www.ncjrs.org/ht ml/ojjdp/nationalreport99/index.html

Don't take Jon's word for it. Read the report yourself:

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report