[Windflier]

Haven’t seen any numbers, but it seems logical that as the ratio of criminals to decent citizens increases, the effectiveness of this approach to crime reduction goes down.

When have you ever seen such a city or town? When there are more predators than prey, the ecological niche breaks down and ceases to exist. Predators have nothing to gain by preying on each other.

I would suggest that predators can't survive where there are no (or too few) prey. Those that are attracted to greener pastures will be put in check if most of the prey are armed. The validity of the 'more guns = less crime' theory holds.

[marktwain]

“When have you ever seen such a city or town? When there are more predators than prey, the ecological niche breaks down and ceases to exist. Predators have nothing to gain by preying on each other.”

The closest that I have heard of is Colon, Panama. I was told that the thieves steal from each other there.

I have also read of tribal areas in Africa around 1900, where it was essentially “every man for himself” and no one was “safe” at any time, as murder was condoned and encouraged.

In conditions such as that, there is very little productivity, and not much to steal.