As I’ve explained on my own substack, this whole debate about crime being up or down has to start with “relative to what?”
- The media’s favorite starting point is “relative to the early 1990s” because then they can always paint concerns about crime as overblown.
- If you use the 1960s or 2014 (the start of the Ferguson effect) instead, crime is up (albeit in the boom and bust “Ferguson cycle” pattern Lehman has written about.
- If you adjust for the fact that our population has aged significantly, which should result in a linear decrease in crime as young men age out of criminal behavior, the lack of any progress over the last two decades suggests violent crime is actually up relative to what we would expect.
- If you compare the United States to developed peers, or even El Salvador, our crime rate looks atrocious (especially homicide).
Not crime, but employment. https://gonzoecon.com/2024/08/employment-figures-revisions-2/
As I’ve explained on my own substack, this whole debate about crime being up or down has to start with “relative to what?”
- The media’s favorite starting point is “relative to the early 1990s” because then they can always paint concerns about crime as overblown.
- If you use the 1960s or 2014 (the start of the Ferguson effect) instead, crime is up (albeit in the boom and bust “Ferguson cycle” pattern Lehman has written about.
- If you adjust for the fact that our population has aged significantly, which should result in a linear decrease in crime as young men age out of criminal behavior, the lack of any progress over the last two decades suggests violent crime is actually up relative to what we would expect.
- If you compare the United States to developed peers, or even El Salvador, our crime rate looks atrocious (especially homicide).
https://grahamfactor.substack.com/p/crime-is-not-down