Posted by Scott on February 14th, 2008 — Posted in Facts and Stats
I just read a great post by Andy Kahan with statistics about violence and victimization in the United States.
Most notably, the statistics say that 4.6 million violent crimes occur each year in the United States. And that statistic apparently only includes the 47% of violent crimes that actually get reported to law enforcement.
Additionally, about 17,000 murders take place in the United States each year.
Financially speaking, violent crime costs victims about $1.4 billion per year and property crimes cost victims about $15.6 billion per year.
Politicians on the payroll of the military industry and the oil industry like to talk about terrorism because it helps them use taxpayer dollars to fund the industry. But these same politicians do little to stop the domestic plague of violent crime and victimization–which kills more Americans than international terrorism.
If you pay taxes and vote, then at least demand that your “representatives” do something to stop violent crime. But I personally doubt that the politicians will change much. So I think we all need to work together to find non-governmental ways to defend ourselves and to prevent violence and victimization.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on August 2nd, 2007 — Posted in Facts and Stats
Mark Potter recently wrote about rising robbery rates in the United States. I include an excerpt:
A boom in bank robberies, many of them fueled by criminals in search of money for drugs, is alarming law-enforcement officials across the nation.
After declining a couple of years ago, robberies in the U.S. are on the rise again, according to the FBI, and two recent violent cases prove just how dangerous those crimes can be.
[…]
FBI statistics show bank robberies rose nearly 4 percent in 2006 to 6,985, the equivalent of one heist every hour and 15 minutes. That compares with 6,748 in 2005. Authorities said this year’s numbers appear to be climbing even higher, with some areas hit particularly hard.
“There’s been pockets; there’s certain cities like Detroit, Chicago, Dallas and Boston,” says FBI Assistant Director Kenneth Kaiser.
Unlike theft in general, robbery specifically refers to using violence or the threat of violence to obtain the victim’s property or money. For that reason, I find myself especially disappointed by these numbers. I wonder how many of these robbers have previously been convicted and jailed for similar crimes, and then released.
When we convict someone, we have to restrain them to protect everyone else. We put robbers in jail so they can no longer rob anyone. We need to keep them in jail so long as they still may rob or otherwise victimze anyone.
I realize that mainstreaming someone may help get them back on track. In other words, a person needs to get back out in society to learn how to live peacefully in society. However, if the state wants to help get these people back on track, they need to keep on eye on them by using a conditional release. Deny these people the ability to do anything that may enable them to recommit. For example, if the robber committed robbery to get money for drugs, then make it a condition of the robber’s release that he cannot use drugs, and give the robber regular drug tests. Additionally, we need to make sure previously-convicted robbers do not have access to guns, knives, or other such weapons.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on August 1st, 2007 — Posted in Facts and Stats
Rachael Aram recently reported statistics from a year 2000 Justice department Report. She reported the following disturbing statistics:
-Forty percent of teenage girls ages 14 to 17 say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. In one study, from 30 percent to 50 percent of female high school students reported having already experienced teen dating violence.
-Teen dating violence most often takes place in the home of one of the partners.
-In 1995, 7 percent of all murder victims were young women who were killed by their boyfriends.
-One in five, or 20 percent, of dating couples report some type of violence in their relationship.
-One in five college females will experience some form of dating violence.
-A survey of 500 young women, ages 15 to 24, found that 60 percent were currently involved in an ongoing abusive relationship and all participants had experienced violence in a dating relationship.
I hope these statistics help illustrate the terrible plague of teen violence and dating violence. We need to put an end to the violence. We have to educate children as well as adults about all the different forms of violence and how to prevent it. We also have to put more resources towards investigating claims of violence, tracking down the offenders, arresting them, convicting them, jailing them, and rehabilitating them. If the offenders cannot be rehabilitated, then let’s not let them out of jail.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on February 1st, 2007 — Posted in Facts and Stats
Debbie Parkes recently reported on a study that indicates that men hide past victimization more than woman:
Nearly one in 10 male respondents reported having been sexually abused in childhood. Of those, about 34 per cent said they had never told anyone prior to being interviewed for the survey.
By comparison, between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of female respondents said they had been sexually abused as a child. Of those, nearly 16 per cent said they had never told anyone other than the surveyor.
In about 60 per cent of cases, the victimization began when the child was under age 12.
Read entire article by Debbie Parkes.
I cannot say I find these statistics surprising. Whether as a result of nature or nurture, the males of our society try to live with a version of masculinity that values strength, independence, and the ability to take care of oneself. Even as children, boys try to display toughness, and tend to hold in their feelings, fears, and problems more than girls.
This extends into adulthood as much as childhood. Domestic violence affects men at great numbers, but society underrates the problem.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on December 31st, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats, Politics & Commentary
In my recent article, The Danger of False Accusations, I call false accusations of sexual victimization one of the greatest hindrances to the active opposition to sexual victimization. In the article, I contend that men tend to rightfully fear false accusations, and thus hesitate to support (one-sided) anti-rape and anti-sexual-assault programs.
Many people - mostly women - questioned the commonness or danger of false accusations, and thus questioned the rightfulness of men’s fear. However, numerous statistics exist on the matter:
According to a nine-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 percent of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (“Archives of Sexual Behavior,” Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Kanin also studied rape allegations in two large Midwestern universities and found that 50 percent of the allegations were recanted by the accuser.
Read entire article by Glenn Sacks.
According to Linda Fairstein, who heads the NYC District Attorney’s Sex Crime Unit, about half of all reported rape claims are false.
According to a 1996 Department of Justice Report, of approximately 10,000 sexual assault cases analyzed with DNA evidence, 2,000 excluded the primary suspect.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century. And, Wendy Mcelroy says that, “False accusations are not rare. They are common.”
Glenn Sacks describes the damage false accusations can cause by saying:
…rape is a horrible crime. But false accusations of rape are every bit as horrible. They are a form of psychological rape that can emotionally, socially, and economically destroy a person even if there is no conviction, especially for those of less fame and fortune than Bryant. The stigma attaches to the falsely accused for life. Few believe them and few care. Prosecutors systematically refuse to prosecute the perpetrators. And victims’ advocates like Murphy refuse to see falsely accused men as victims, and instead work to minimize and conceal the problem.
Most often false accusers aim their accusations at men. While the media and activist organizations tend to pressure men to sympathize with the threat women face of being sexually victimized, these same women seem to care little about the justified fear men have of false accusations. Even without a conviction, a false accusation can ruin a person’s life, financially, emotionally, and socially.
Unless anti-rape and anti-sexual-assault activists and organizations respect the prevalence of false accusations and the damage they cause men, these activists will fail. Men tend to fear false accusations as women tend to fear sexual victimization. I want to stop both sexual victimization and false accusations. I want to stop, prosecute, and jail both false accusers and sexual victimizers. To do that successfully, we all must work together to find ways to simultaneously prevent both false accusations and sexual victimizations.
Since one side fears false accusations and the other fears sexual victimizations, any organization that takes a one-sided approach and comes out fervently against only one of these problems meets with opposition from the other side. In contrast, an organization which simultaneously fights to prevent both false accusations and sexual victimization can get cooperative support from both sides.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on December 19th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats
Take a look at preliminary violent crime rates during the first six months of 2006 compared with the first six months of 2005.
Violent crimes overall: +3.7 percent
Murders: +1.4 percent
Forcible rape: -0.1 percent
Robbery: +9.7 percent
Aggravated assault: +1.2 percent
Property crimes overall: -2.6 percent
Burglaries: +1.2 percent
Larceny-theft: -3.8 percent
Motor vehicle theft: -2.3 percent
Arson: +6.8 percent
Source: FBI Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2006
With these numbers, overall I’d call the violent crime rates stagnant. Unfortunately, stagnant means that still nearly 100,000 forcible rapes take place yearly in the United States, and that U.S. citizens are the victims of around a quarter of a billion crimes per year. I find that horrifically ridiculous. Let’s stop wasting resources on such things as “victimless crimes” and start using our resources to drastically reduce the violent crime rates.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on September 5th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats, Politics & Commentary
When over 25% of inmates in the United States are non-violent drug “offenders”, it irks me to see violent criminals walk the streets freely.
Many people don’t understand that the war on drugs increases violence and victimization, such as with alcohol during the 1930s prohibition. However, even these people must admit that it irks them to see their tax-dollars wasted on enforcing victimless crimes while violence and victimization run rampant in this country.
How many women have to be raped; how many homes have to robbed; how many citizens have to be assaulted, before all these resources are dedicated to protecting citizens from victimization?!
I just reread an article from September 2005 citing a push in Connecticut (USA) to look for a new way, with drug laws. Living in Connecticut myself, I can assure everyone that this did not come to pass.
Connecticut still wastes its resources fighting a war on non-violent drug offenders, while loads of violence and victimization still plague the state. For example, in the capital, Hartford, where drug enforcement is highest, over 1,500 violent crimes and over 10,000 property crimes take place annually. Instead of protecting citizens from these victimizations, the city decides to wage a war on non-violent drug offenders.
The article I read points out the underlying racism of the drug war:
In Connecticut, black and Latino males make up less than 6% of the population, but they account for almost 70% of the state prison population of roughly 20,000. And they account for the vast majority of the roughly 14,000 drug offenders doing time in Connecticut.
We need to end this racism and reduce crime by repealing drug prohibition.
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Posted by Scott on August 26th, 2006 — Posted in Domestic Abuse, Facts and Stats
Unfortunately, domestic violence persists to plague America. To successfully protect ourselves, our friends, and our families, we must recognize the reality and prevalence of domestic abuse. EndAbuse.org provides many facts on their website. These are some:
- Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.
- Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.
- On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.
- Three in four women (76 percent) who reported they had been raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault.
Read more facts here: http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/
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Posted by Scott on August 19th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats, Politics & Commentary
I just found an intersting article on the national center for policy analysis about violent crime. The article says that violent crime continues to be a serious problem in the United States despite reports of a decline in the overall crime rate. http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/vc.html
The article refers to “revolving-door justice”, which means that violent criminals get released from jail as quickly as they get locked up. The facts mentioned in the article shock; Barely one criminal goes to prison for every 100 violent victimizations, And most violent prisoners serve less than half their sentence behind bars before being released.
Unfortunately, mainly prison overcrowding causes this “revolving-door”. It disgusts me to see violent criminals released back on the streets, where they proceed to threaten and victimize innocent citizens, such as yourself, myself, our families, and our friends. What makes this even more disgusting and even more sad is that this revolving-door could be avoided if only our government would stop wasting resources on victimless crimes. Over 25% of the inmates in the United States are non-violent drug “offenders”. By focusing law enforcement, rehabilitation, and incarceration on violent criminals who victimize other people, rather than wasting resources on victimless “crimes”, the jails would have room for over 33% more violent criminals.
I want innocent citizens defended from victimization. Accordingly, I want the government to stop wasting resources on victimless “crimes” and non-violent non-harmful “offenders”, and I want violent criminals kept in jail until they are rehabilitated and pose no threat to you, me, my family, or friends.
-Scott Hughes
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Posted by Scott on August 17th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats
Here’s a graph of the violent crime rate. I want to take this time to emphasize my immense frustration with the enforcement of victimless crimes - costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year - when violent crimes are bleeding this country. Find the graph of violent crime below:
Graph From: http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/factfiles_detail.cfm?issue_type=crime&list=1
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Posted by Scott on August 14th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats
I just found an interesting quiz on U.S. crime facts and police work. Many of the answers stunned me. I won’t share them now, so that I won’t ruin the quiz for you. I recommend you take this quiz. It’s fun and enlightening at the same time.
http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/Humanities/US-Crime-Facts-51317.html
-Scott Hughes
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on July 13th, 2006 — Posted in Facts and Stats
In 2004, U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced approximately 24 million crimes, according to findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey. 18.6 million were property crimes. 5.2 million were crimes of violence.
Victims experienced 223,290 rapes and sexual assaults in 2003, and 4.6 million physical assaults.
Please keep yourself, your family and your friends safe. Remember, you can’t prepare after the fact.
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