"The other setting is Urban, you don't know neighbours, you don't care what they think. Everyone appears out of nowhere and disappears into obscurity."
And yet crime levels in various urban settings are wildly different, from places like Johannesburg on one extreme of the continuum to Reykjavík or Tokio on the other one.
Looking at the worst cities worldwide as far as homicide goes, almost all the top contenders are from Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, the US or Colombia, with Mexico being heavily overrepresented. 17 of the top 50 homicide metropolises are Mexican. Damn.
There isn't a single European or Asian city in that list. Germany has some 60 per cent of the Mexican population, but isn't present in the top 50 at all. Heck, even India and China just aren't there, and they together account for almost half of mankind.
Seems like all the cities with ethnically uniform population established for hundreds of years are safe, while those much younger cities with historically lots of immigration from various different places are unsafe. Not sure what the US should do with that, it's not like there is (almost) anybody other than immigrants or any truly old cities at all.
What has you rejecting a much simpler hypothesis that strict law enforcement makes cities safe? pursing, arresting, and severe punishment of criminals.
You've just blended all of justice system into a single metric that is too basic.
If you want 'tough on crime' that actually works, but you have to be tough on all crime, including crime in the police. And make sure the entire justice process works.
UK has a 'tough on crime' government, they've increased severity of sentences, but have cut funding to the police. The rate of prosecution, i.e. how likely you are to get caught, fell off a cliff. Also now that police is poorly paid, we have corruption in the police.
Research shows that certainty of punishment is far more important than severity of punishment. Criminals are chancers.
Then we have to make sure that suspects get proper legal council. The current plea bargain system in US is absurd. You can prosecute some poor shmuck for a crime, they can't afford a lawyer, and state lawyer sucks, so they take the plea. Taxpayer pays for their imprisonment, police reports great success. Meanwhile real criminal goes free to commit more crimes with more experience. And they will be harder to catch next time.
Most european countries do not have severe punishment of criminals, yet crime rates aren't crazy.
I havent been to US, so i am not sure about any Bay Area shenanigans
> Research shows that certainty of punishment is far more important than severity of punishment.
So we completely agree because I’m pretty sure that is all that actually matters.
The issue in US currently is a deranged political fade has taken hold that sees criminals as victims of their circumstances and has started not punishing criminals.
It can be simultaneously true that criminal behavior is often a result of bad circumstances AND that it requires consistent punishment, not that the first point negates the 2nd. Instead social programs need to focus on improving circumstances that lead to criminal behavior not removing punishments.
This political fade is a bankrupt flawed ideology that is effectively mass social psychosis or insanity.
> It can be simultaneously true that criminal behavior is often a result of bad circumstances AND that it requires consistent punishment, not that the first point negates the 2nd. Instead social programs need to focus on improving circumstances that lead to criminal behavior not removing punishments.
The problem is there’s another flawed political ideology that tells us that—investing in social programs to improve the circumstances that lead to criminal behavior—is bad because communism.
The fact that many US cities have very strict law enforcement and yet they're on the list. Meanwhile, I really wouldn't say we have as strong law enforcement here in EU as it is in the US.
UK is regarded as extremely highly policed state by other Europeans and yet it's less safe than here in mainland Europe.
The street police doesn't carry guns, but what about all these cameras? That'd be considered a serious breach of privacy and personal freedom where I live.
My police is approachable and I don't care about the gun on their belt. I saw them use it for protection of the citizens - I appreciate they have it and don't consider it over-policing, it's not moving that scale anywhere.
It's not about the gun, it's about the rights of the police. The police here carries a gun but has zero rights/power against citizens not breaking any laws. They can't even stop you and ask for your ID - that would be considered "communism" here (same with the cameras, that's a "communist practice").
The Mexican cities topping the chart have very little immigration, while many safe Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai have huge amounts of immigration from all over the world.
Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai are all places that practice extreme police/state overreach unacceptable by western standards. I don't consider a city that will have a person flogged for littering a safe place.
You will not get flogged for littering in any of those, although Singapore famously does have judicial caning for intentional vandalism. And unlike the US, you are extremely unlikely to get shot by the police.
Edit: It's applied rarely and only for egregious cases, eg breaking into a depot to spray-paint subway cars and getting caught on CCTV doing it. There are plenty of things to criticize about Singapore (for one, there's a lot less oversight on prisoners getting caned as an administrative punishment), but the way they handle vandalism isn't really at the top of my list, not least because it's remarkably effective.
"a city that will have a person flogged for littering"
Isn't this mostly a myth? You will get fined for littering in Singapore just like elsewhere, though their fines are higher and the police arguably enforces laws against littering more eagerly than in the West. Caning (not flogging) is reserved for more serious offences (IIRC the lightest one is vandalism.)
Dubai employs flogging, but for Shariah offences, not for littering.
Hong Kong doesn't use judicial corporeal punishment at all.
Yes. The normal punishment for littering in Singapore is a fine, while repeat offenders may get Corrective Work Orders, meaning having to pick trash off roads while wearing a yellow flouro vest saying so. Caning is not on the menu.
Vienna is pretty mixed since the times of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but fairly safe. Glasgow is almost purely Scottish, but dangerous. Naples is probably less ethnically mixed than Rome, but more dangerous. Marseille is a lot worse than Genoa etc.
I don't doubt that particular kinds of immigration can worsen crime situation considerably, but some places can manage that and some fail miserably. You can even see it in the same city if the political representation changes. AFAIK the current mayor of Barcelona is notorious for letting street crime fester.
There's nowhere near the amount of immigrants you see in the US, where it's practically everyone. The more eastern you go, the less immigration. In Poland, Czechia and Slovakia there are major cities with zero non-white people and single digit percent immigrants from nearby states.
"In Poland, Czechia and Slovakia there are major cities with zero non-white people and single digit percent immigrants from nearby states.
reply"
There are Vietnamese communities in CZ/SK everywhere, even in very rural areas, but, you won't see them much in the streets, because they spend their life indoors working, and they usually own their shops, living right behind them, so they aren't even seen commuting to work and back. Quite often the only small grocery in a village or a small town is Vietnamese-owned.
But maybe East Asians are now considered (elevated? condemned?) as basically white by the American racial discourse?
Indeed, is my problem with American racial discourse too - once you dig beyong sufrace level, it's inconsistent and primitive.
Whether left or right, their concept of ethnicity is primitive. white/black/asian.
Are Russians same ethnicity as Germans? Are Germans same ethnicity as Bavarian? Russian government considers Russia to have ~100 ethnic groups native to Russia.
Us discourse is either about skin-colour, or about man-made country borders.
The only scientifically based concept is Haplogroups, bur noone knwos about them.
And yet crime levels in various urban settings are wildly different, from places like Johannesburg on one extreme of the continuum to Reykjavík or Tokio on the other one.
Looking at the worst cities worldwide as far as homicide goes, almost all the top contenders are from Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, the US or Colombia, with Mexico being heavily overrepresented. 17 of the top 50 homicide metropolises are Mexican. Damn.
There isn't a single European or Asian city in that list. Germany has some 60 per cent of the Mexican population, but isn't present in the top 50 at all. Heck, even India and China just aren't there, and they together account for almost half of mankind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rat...
The pattern is too non-random to claim that urban life in itself is somehow inherently dangerous. It is only dangerous if your governance sucks.
And yes, SF governance sucks, though not to the degree of Ciudad Juarez - but that is a low, low hurdle to clear.