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What Criminologists Don’t Say, and Why
City Journal ^ | September 2, 2017 | John Paul Wright and Matt DeLisi

Posted on 09/02/2017 6:44:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The history of academic criminology is one of grand pronouncements that don’t often prove out in the real world. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, criminologists demanded that public policy attack the “root causes” of crime, such as poverty and racism. Without solving these problems, they argued, we could not expect to fight crime effectively. On this thinking, billions of taxpayer dollars poured into ambitious social programs—yet crime went up, not down. In the 1970s and 1980s and into the 1990s, as crime rates continued to spike, criminologists proceeded to tell us that the police could do little to cut crime, and that locking up the felons, drug dealers, and gang leaders who committed much of the nation’s criminal violence wouldn’t work, either.

These views were shown to be false, too, but they were held so pervasively across the profession that, when political scientist James Q. Wilson called for selective incapacitation of violent repeat offenders, he found himself ostracized by his peers, who resorted to ad hominem attacks on his character and motivations. Wilson’s work was ignored by awards committees, and criminological reviews of his books, especially Thinking About Crime and Crime and Human Nature, were almost universally negative. In the real-world policy arena, however, Wilson attained significant influence: the Broken Windows theory of policing and public order, which Wilson developed with criminologist George Kelling, became a key part of the proactive policing strategies that would be largely responsible for the great crime decline starting in the mid-1990s.

In short, while academic criminology has had much to say about crime, most of it has been wrong. How can an academic discipline be so wrongheaded? And should we listen to criminologists today when, say, they call for prisons to be emptied.....

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: academicbias; crime; criminology; groupthink; law; lawenforcement
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1 posted on 09/02/2017 6:44:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is secular leftists trying to do on mortal power what only the church can do.

I don’t criticize the sentiment nearly as much as the method.


2 posted on 09/02/2017 6:48:52 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

what they don’t say is that most crime is committed by certain groups....


3 posted on 09/02/2017 6:49:04 PM PDT by cherry
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Its impossible to address crime without addressing its inverse relationship to personal virtue. Societies are made up of individuals; abandon virtue as a society and watch your society unravel.

In simplest terms, crime can be tied pretty directly to broken families and substance abuse. Broken families and substance abuse.

It isn’t poverty. Poor neighborhoods, in a society in which families are intact and virtue is the norm, are as safe as any other.


4 posted on 09/02/2017 6:54:05 PM PDT by marron
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Criminology is dominated by liberal academics.

Their theories contradict real world experience.

But that’s okay, because for them, criminals aren’t the problem.

Society is the problem.


5 posted on 09/02/2017 6:55:52 PM PDT by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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To: marron

Even “virtue” is a precarious thing without tying it to the Lord.

You might have the best instruments in the world in a room, but if it’s rank amateurs playing on them, you won’t get the wonderful sound of the Philadelphia Philharmonic.


6 posted on 09/02/2017 7:01:54 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: goldstategop

Society has been a problem — for God — ever since the fall of humanity.


7 posted on 09/02/2017 7:02:27 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Even “virtue” is a precarious thing without tying it to the Lord.

I often like to say, the root social problem is too few Christians per square mile.

8 posted on 09/02/2017 7:07:20 PM PDT by marron
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

You mean “midnight basketball” didn’t work?? I’d guess that ghetto basketball is taking a backseat to drivebys.


9 posted on 09/02/2017 7:11:06 PM PDT by JimSEA
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To: marron

> I often like to say, the root social problem is too few Christians per square mile.

Tons of Christians per square mile in the Philippines, sky high crime rates. Almost no Christians in Japan and crime is almost nonexistent. What Japan has and the Philippines does not is order. To establish order you have to brutal on those who refuse it which is what Rodrigo Duterte is doing to the Philippines right now.


10 posted on 09/02/2017 7:14:45 PM PDT by JohnyBoy (We should forgive communists, but not before they are hanged.)
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To: goldstategop
Criminology is dominated by liberal academics. Their theories contradict real world experience.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Yogi Berra
11 posted on 09/02/2017 7:14:56 PM PDT by IWontSubmit (2)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Save for later


12 posted on 09/02/2017 7:34:44 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is my field - the author is spot on!


13 posted on 09/02/2017 7:36:40 PM PDT by KosmicKitty (Waiting for inspiration)
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To: IWontSubmit
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

Albert Einstein

14 posted on 09/02/2017 7:42:48 PM PDT by HandyDandy ("Do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Leftists are a cancer, they foul everything they touch. We do nothing to stop it, so our country is a dump.


15 posted on 09/02/2017 8:04:37 PM PDT by The Toll
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Criminal activity is a personal choice, period.


16 posted on 09/02/2017 8:18:28 PM PDT by wjcsux (The hyperventilating of the left means we are winning! (Tagline courtesy of Laz.))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’m guessing the question is “Are blacks prone to committing robbery and murder due to genetics or culture?”


17 posted on 09/02/2017 8:38:07 PM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (Let's start putting signs on Confederate statues that read "DEMOCRAT".)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
This is secular leftists trying to do on mortal power what only the church can do.

Actually it is what the individual can do if they obey God's chosen method of redemption, otherwise, all that is truly left, is lifetime incarceration, repeat offenses, or this type of punishment.


18 posted on 09/02/2017 8:40:01 PM PDT by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Is this going to impact my investment in the midnight basketball dealership?


19 posted on 09/02/2017 8:40:36 PM PDT by ArmstedFragg (So Long Obie)
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To: KosmicKitty

I hope the professors are fully tenured, the “push back” is going to be unbelievable.


20 posted on 09/02/2017 8:46:31 PM PDT by ArmstedFragg (So Long Obie)
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