Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A question on crime localization

I work on the border of Mogadore, a village of 4000, and Akron, a city of 200,000. The other evening after dark, I drove a mile down the street to pick up a couple items from a Mogadore store, and as I stepped out into the semi-lit parking lot, (while quickly scanning for anything suspect) I got thinking. While you can never be assurred you are ever really safe, this is a pretty "safe" area. Yet, practically next door in Akron, 4 people were shot in the head "execution style" last week- no suspects yet.

Just looked up some stats: Mogadore: 83 violent crimes per 100,000 and 97% white. Akron: 893 violent crimes per 100,000 and 62% white, 31% black.

The question is more about "violent crimes" than "white collar" crimes and is this: what stops bad guys from running down the street a couple miles to what's considered a "safe" area and commiting their crimes on the unsuspecting?

My initial thought was that they're done mostly by the underclass and it might be because of lack of transportation. Then I quickly realized stealing a car is no big thing if you're already that kind of person.

Then I realized, they probably don't put much thought into planning these things in advance, and therefore, most would fall into what they call, "crimes of opportunity". Is this about right?

Yes. I think that they are mostly crimes of opportunity. That, and perhaps the fact that there still people to pick off in Akron. When the pickings get slim there, they will venture out further to meet their needs.

Most criminals do what they do in what you would call their "home Turf", the area that they feel comfortable in. Don't think for a minute that these thugs don't perceive those in areas not like their own as a threat. I don't know how many time I've heard, while overhearing a conversation, an inmate say that "those ^%(@$ MFers over there carry guns and will shoot your %!*%^ ass". The threat to their safety that CCW poses is very real to them.

There's usually drugs involved in that element, too. They need to be home to sell them because that's where the buyers will go to get them.

You also forgot that by and large the majority of people are stupid.

True. But how does that relate to why crime seems to concentrate in certain areas? Are you saying that the perpetrators aren't smart enough to think things through? Or that their victims are in the wrong place/time?

Pointing out those type of facts will cause a liberal to accuse you of being a racist.

I thought of that, and almost didn't include the stats, but decided they can just take the facts for what they're worth.

Mogadore has 3 eating establishments and 2 traffic lights. I'm the only person eating at them that everyone else doesn't know. If I see an LEO there, he'll be running radar or issueing a ticket. (Although I did have to wait nearly 5 minutes for one in front of me yesterday to shoo a family of Canada Geese off the road.)

By contrast, it is nothing unusual to see 2 or 3 of Akron's finest with someone spread-eagled over the hood of a cruiser.

You answered that already.

I've eaten at the Pizza place in Mogadore and the local bar near the ball field. I have friends that live there. No doubt a small town.

About a year ago I crunched some number regarding murder rates.
Results were that on a per person basis, Hispanics committ 3-4 times the murders that whites, and on the same per person basis, blacks comitt 10-12 murders for every one committed by a white.

In addition, most crimes victom and offender are of the same race. With murders, 80-90% are related to other crime, primarily drug disputes. We also see this in the effects of gang affiliation of murders. US murder rate is about 6 per 100k. This jumps to 600 per 100k for gang members.

Combine all these different variables, and crime begins to clump in certain area.

Hey my dad and grandmother both live in Mogadore. Bout a mile from the Giant Eagle.

The Color of Crime

The Color of Crime: Race, Crime, and Justice in America

Major Findings:

Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.


Crime Rates

Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.

When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.

Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.

The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

Interracial Crime

Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.

Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.

Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.

Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.

Gangs

Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.

Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.

Incarceration

Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.

Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.

http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.html

Nice link Klink.
They guys show some nice correlations, but never run a proper regression on the data. If you run a proper regression, race becomes the dominate, most significant variable with the highest coefficent, and poverty and unemployment become insignificant and largly drop out of the regression.

Antelope_sniper & Col Klink, pretty compelling statistics. Thanks.

My original intent wasn't to be a thread about race, but rather a question of why the crime tends to stay localized. Although as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing because it makes it a little easier to know where to avoid.

So, I guess other than the oddball prison escapee on the lamb, or something of that nature, the general consensus is that the perpetrators tend to operate mostly in their own neighborhood? Why? Although as a poster said earlier, word tends to get out where you might get shot or something.

That's a great thought. I haven't ran regression models since grad school but that would definitely make for an interesting analysis. I have no doubt that the most highly correlated variable to the propensity to commit violent crime is race.

Couple of thoughts....

In the hood a hoodrat looks normal and doesn't arouse any concern. Send him 2 miles down the road the the burbs and he sticks out like a sore thumb. People watch him, call the police on him, making it harder for him to commit crime.

Folks in low income areas are (IME) are less likely to report crimes, follow through with prosecution when they do, or fight back against criminals. They're generally easier to intimidate and just make better victims.

Most criminals will commit crime close to home. It just feels safer for them.

Low income areas (unfortunately) often don't have the same police presence that upper middle class areas do. (Politicians take care of the voters first)