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Murder Is Like a Disease (No, Really)
pigrabbitbear writes "With a homicide rate historically more than three times greater than the rest of the United States, Newark, N.J., isn't a great vacation spot. But it's a great place for a murder study (abstract). Led by April Zeoli, an assistant professor of criminal justice, a group of researchers at Michigan State University tracked homicides around Newark from 1982 to 2008, using analytic software typically used by medical researchers to track the spread of diseases. They found that "homicide clusters" in Newark, as researchers called them, spread and move throughout a city much the same way diseases do. Murders, in other words, did not surface randomly—they began in the city center and moved in 'diffusion-like processes' across the city."
If most murders are drug-related, this could be modeling the spread of drug markets by proxy.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Does the study take into account gang culture and revenge killings?
I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
Many years ago, I visited the NRA office in Washington DC. They quoted a lot of statistics about other countries that had high gun ownership rates and low murder rates. My take-home message was that Americans shouldn't be allowed guns (and possibly sharp objects) until they are a bit more civilised, but I don't think that was what they were intending.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Is there no better use for research funding than to study the self-evident and report the obvious?
It is obvious to you that murder acts like a disease? What is self-evident about it?
There might be some use in this if it led to an accurate predictive formula for preemptive intervention, but I see nothing about that in TFA or the summary.
Did you even read TFA?
..so that police might potentially identify problem areas as they are emerging—or perhaps, one imagines, before they emerge./quote/ Sounds to me like it might lead to an accurate predictive formula for preemptive intervention.
The problem is that they're right.
I'm a Brit, and a strong supporter of the firearms laws we have here that limit the spread of guns (as in making sure the legal owners secure them and keep track of them so that they aren't "lost" into the black market). This only works because we have a low level of gun ownership to start with.
In the US the situation is radically different, and not just because of the culture. There are almost as many guns as people there, with such a vast number untracked that disarming the entire country is simply not going to happen. If you tried to apply our laws to their country, all it would achieve is to annoy the legal owners of firearms without making the slightest difference on the availability of guns on the black market.
Once you already have so many weapons around, the damage is already done. It's too late to stop it. At that point, you might as well accept reality and let people try to defend themselves against it.
And hypocritically, you have to check your GE Minigun at the desk!
Of MSNBC's race card.
Its more likely this is actually modelling the passage of a new batch of guns through the criminal underworld.
I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
Check Vermont, you fucking idiot. It has quite possibly the most relaxed gun laws in the country, and is always in the top 5 states for least amount of crime, and usually top 3 for least amount of murders.
That pattern goes far beyond Vermont, too. Look at the Brady Campaign rankings of states by gun laws, and you see an almost perfect correlation between strong gun laws and violence. The states with the least restrictive laws have the least violence. Now, that could be because places with lots of violence react by passing strong gun laws, but the studies on the effect of shall-issue concealed carry laws (laws that require the state to issue concealed carry permits to anyone who doesn't have a criminal record) shows a fairly clear and consistent, if small, decrease in the crime rate when more guns are on the street in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
My guess is that the explanation for the results of this study is gang warfare, a cycle of revenge killings fed and funded by the illegal drug trade. But I've believed for years that the biggest thing we could do to reduce violence in this country is to end the useless, ineffective and counterproductive war on drugs, and I like guns (I'm a concealed carry instructor), so it's not surprising that my view tracks closely with my opinions.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It's helpful to people planning morge, hospital, and police resources. Making sure that your manpower is ready for clusters of murders and have the tools to handle the dead, injured, and evidence is useful. It's also useful to the communities to realize and have hard numbers to back up their needs for containment of such dangerous events, and to help them innoculate against the outbreak spreading by education and community outreach.
CDC vectoring tools would seem to be potentially useful. What is the timetable of such "outbreaks" ? Are control efforts better spent on dealing on each outbreak, as it occurs, or on broader "innoculation" via employment programs and drug rehabiliation?
Many years ago, I visited the NRA office in Washington DC. They quoted a lot of statistics about other countries that had high gun ownership rates and low murder rates.
Did they say anything about correlations with other crimes? I've got a pet theory that most gun homicides are drug related and that if we took those out of the totals, the stats for the USA wouldn't be all that different from those in other countries.
But, so far, I haven't been able to find anywhere on the web that breaks down the number of gun homicides in a way that would lend itself to that sort of analysis. I've got a pet theory about that too - that the stereotypical NRA crowd is also big-time pro-war-on-drugs and the anti-war-on-drugs people are stereotypically anti-gun. So the two biggest groups on both sides aren't interested in seeing their pet causes in contradiction.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
In the book "Connected" by Christakis and Fowler, it is argued that violence (but also hapiness, depression, etc) spreads through social networks. So if a friend of your friend was involved in either side of a murder, chances increase dramatically that you will, too. Your emotional states and their associated beliefs and actions are contagious, first and foremost to those around you that know you, then those who know them, and so on. The analogy with a disease, jumping from host to host through social networks, is quite adequate.
disclaimer: I am a you row pee'n
unless you're libertarian... but I doubt we'll find any of those around here.
what obscenely high murder rates? your popular perception has little to do with reality. rates are down, and have been going down for years. crime, including homicide, in the US is at quite possibly the lowest point in the country's entire history.
but dont let that stop you from making your stupid american comments for an instant +5 insightful.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I never really thought that was not understood.
We want to save money, for example. In business, we want to lose less money so, in food production, they add preservatives or use ingredients with longer shelf lives. The consequence of this falls to the consumer and back to society as a whole as it deals with increases in health problems such as diabetes. The "blame" is on the individual but also on society but also on the suppliers who make these decisions... because they want to save money.
We want to earn a living, as another example. When the establishment doesn't wish to allow outsiders to participate in the market, markets of other colors are born and developed.... you know, like grey and black markets. ALL markets of all colors and tones require defense and enforcement. The white markets are supported, defended and enforced by the established government. The other markets use other means and most often, by gangs and the like.
The development of organized crime which I described above also has other negative impacts on society. Among these are the glorification of the lifestyle in art. We see it every day through our comical portrayal of pirates [the high seas, wooden ship variety] and we see it in more modern ways as well. But the crimes against people afftected by unregulated (and even regulated) killing and other violence takes its toll on the hearts and minds of the people who live among these events. As death and killing becomes more frequent and more expected, the notion of defending one's self with deadly force becomes increasingly more acceptable. And the very definition of "defense" also twists itself into convenient shapes to suit the motivations and interests of those doing the killing and violence.
We have all sorts of behaviors which require regulation. The restriction or limitation of market participation, for example, leads to crime. We saw it in alcohol prohibition. We saw it in religious freedom restrictions. We see it today with more contemporary drugs. But we are also seeing it in other markets as well. The content publication industry finds itself incredibly threatened by digital technologies in that there is no medium to hold the content and therefore they aren't exactly a publication in the classical sense of the word. But nevertheless, we see the same patterns... government support, defense and enforcement. And it most certainly stems from the few trying to hold onto their territory and to prevent others from participating in the markets they have controlled.
To say murder is "like a disease" is to fail to see the over-all pattern of human behaviors... the causes which lead to effects which lead to more causes and more effects. Of course that comparison begins to break down somewhat when you determine which disease(s) murder is most similar to and which it is not though the generalities tend to hold true. But the root cause of both disease and of murder is human behavior and human nature.
Human nature is best overcome by law and regulation. It is really as simple as that. If someone says "what about God?!" Then you are simply saying "religious law" instead of just law.
...And why does there need to be an NRA and not a NRPGA? Why did God give us the right to own rifles but did not give us the right to own rocket propelled grenades? After all, if you outlaw RPGs, only outlaws will have RPGs. And what about the NICBMA? To remind us that intercontinental ballistic missiles don't kill people, people kill people!
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
I carry my Buck Knife (3" blade) everywhere with me. It's a tool. But I believe that could land me in jail in the U.K.?
Please confirm or refute.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
I carry my Buck Knife (3" blade) everywhere with me. It's a tool. But I believe that could land me in jail in the U.K.?
Please confirm or refute.
If it lock, yes. All fix blade are banned, they consider a locked blade to be the equivalent of a fix blade. Slip join are fine, under 3 inch. eg: Laguiole, sak, spyderco uk.
IANAL. If you travel, buy a knife locally and ask the shop owner about local custom eg: It may be legal but inappropriate. A locally brought knife also make a great travel souvenirs.
Well, that's the problem with stereotypes, isn't it? They have such little basis in reality.
While I'm not a member of the NRA, I've been around guns and owned guns all my life. My dad gave me my first shotgun when I was 12. Over the past 40-some years I've managed to collect a couple of pistols, 5 shotguns and 3 rifles without really thinking about it. I think I'm pretty typical of any guy who grew up in a rural area in a country with halfway sane gun laws.
I was also taught that the War on Drugs was a joke. My dad was a member of the Minnesota branch of the National Education Association (teacher's union for those outside the U.S.) and his district's perennial delegate to the annual state convention. He spoke in favor of a resolution backing the legalization of marijuana in the early or mid '70s. (The motion passed, by the way.)
He said then that the war on drugs (which was just heating up at the time) was a waste of resources. He didn't see the point in criminalizing an activity with such a demonstrably small impact on society. Instead, he advocated legalizing it and treating it the same as alcohol or tobacco.
His attitude was a fairly common one then, and I think still is up here in Upper Midwest. We like to party and we like our guns. Those of us who have been raised around guns know the two don't mix. ;-)
Violent crimes, including violent crimes with guns, has been on the downward trend for decades in the United States. And during those decades gun laws have generally gotten *less* strict in that more and more states are legalizing concealed carry and some are even allowing open carry. Also, gun ownership is up. So, gun ownership and ease of purchase is either largely unrelated to gun violence or has a negative correlation. Generally, gun shot wounds, particularly from hand guns, are not fatal and the patient recovers. Of course that's not what makes the news. I don't have the statistics handy but something around 10% of hand gun shot victims die. Obviously we don't want anyone to die, but this isn't like a huge plague of death or something and things are getting better, not worse.
Which lets me post one of my favorite quotes (although I can't remember who to attribute it to):
"Computers have enabled more people to make more mistakes, faster than any other human invention - with the possible exception of Tequila and Handguns"
or something to that effect :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Are there no machinists?
Have you even driven a British made automobile ?!
No. There are no machinists in Great Britain.
I've got a pet theory that most gun homicides are drug related
You aren't the only one. In recent years Baltimore City tried that approach. Here is one article I found on the subject:
Baltimore’s Crime Drops As War On Drugs Becomes War On Violence.
Say what? That people kill people with guns? Of course you can.
What we object to is trying to makes laws designed so criminals can have guns but normal people can't. Those don't make sense, and they don't work.
/me shakes head in disbelief.
I've lived in many countries, including the US, and ambition in "welfare states" is not lower: you get born with a fixed amount of ambition and your social circumstances have only a small effect on it.
What is lower in "welfare states" is misery.
Yes. I found it interesting when I was talking to the owner of a cannon at a Civil War recreation event about the legality of his cannon ownership. He explained to me that owning a cannon is perfectly legal as it's lack of rifling meant that it was not classified as a "gun".
It's worth noting that Newark, New Jersey already has pretty strict gun control laws. They just don't work. It's the same story for any US city with high murder rates, and always has been. Very strict (often unconstitutional) gun laws, zero benefit.
If anyone actually cared about solving high murder rates and other violent crime they'd deal with issues of poverty. But that's a hard problem without an easy, obvious legislative fix. That's not the sort of difficult message that gets people [re]elected. Voters want to hear that you've got a complete fix, on paper, that will make their problems go away, at no cost to them.
It's little more than security theater as a political game, with unfortunate side effects.
The per capita homicide rate of the US was 4.4per in the last count, which sounds extremely high. For most Americans though, the "experienced" rate is much closer to Europe at 2.2per (same as Finland). You see, ~6% of the US population (African american males between 18-40) commit over half of all homicides (55% according to the 2010 FBI uniform crime report). If you scale down the rate at which black males commit homicide to be more in line with the percent of the population they represent, you're looking at European-level homicide rates. Now obviously there are a number of contributing factors to why this is occurring, most of them based on poverty, gang-related activity, and broken families/social structure for example. For the lion's share of the US population, our homicide rate is on par with Europe - it's only for tiny pockets of our population that the rate is extraordinarily high.