[BBKing]

The thing with asking Graham to find a solution is that the problem that you're asking him to find a solution to doesn't actually exist. Hence it's a bit harsh asking him to solve it.

5-'inequality creates crime'--that's such a load of bull!--are you a communist?

Nyet, tovarich. Glad to lay your mind at rest there. Remember to check under your bed tonight and ring Joe McCarthy if you see anyone you suspect of Bolshevism.

Criminals create crime and a lack of 'proper' upbringing creates criminals. There will always be inequality- deal with it

Thank you, Mr. Mackay of Slade Prison. If you read back, I did say that *reducing* inequality should be an aim, it's quite evident that inequality always exists and it's Utopian (and therefore silly) to pretend otherwise.

I should probably have written 'inequality + freedom = crime' since it's perfectly possible to have a society with low crime, great inequality and little freedom (like Singapore). Likewise you can have societies with low crime, relative equality and little freedom (like the USSR). It does seem impossible to pull off the triple (low crime+inequality+freedom), although Japan might be an interesting example (there's a lot of organised crime there, of course).

However, history does tend to show that suddenly increasing inequality and freedom (particularly freedom of movement) in a state does lead to rocketing crime, for which the obvious examples are Russia and (to some extent) South Africa. There is a wealth of literature from both economists and sociologists that investigates crime as it relates to inequality (of many sorts) and to dismiss this as 'bull' is a little simplistic. Go and read some of it.

Having said 'don't take examples from the US judicial system', I'm now going to take examples from the US, but from academic studies, rather than punishments. I hope this distinction is obvious!

http://www.crime.smartlibrary.org/Ne...m?segment=1664

A statistical analysis of the 125 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. supports the idea that economic inequalities between blacks and whites are a source of frustration and lead to violent crime.

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/301/301lect07.htm

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
Economic inequality is usually measured as income inequality, and mathematically using features of the Lorenz curve, specifically four coefficients: the Gini, Mehran, Bonferroni, and Piesch. The Gini coefficient is the most commonly seen one in criminology, and it weights extreme outcomes in inequality; the Piesch, high incomes; and the Mehran and Bonferroni, low incomes. The weightings are done to the tails of the distribution. The Gini coefficient ranges from "0" where everyone is fairly equal to "1" where one person has all the wealth and everyone else has none. Gini indexes of as low as 0.10 have reached statistical significance in relationship to crime. The U.S. average Gini is 0.25 and rising.

I suggest reading the whole of that second one, actually, it's quite short and packed with interesting stuff. It also quotes both Milton Friedman (right-wing proto-Thatcherite economist) and Karl Marx, so there's a bit of balance for you.

Criminals create crime, but society creates criminals. It's society's problem, and the structure of society (particularly the economic structure) undeniably affects the production of criminals. Two obvious things are reducing unemployment and increasing minimum wages. Those have *direct* effects on reducing inequality and therefore reducing crime rates. However, the jobs have to be good jobs, rewarding and well-paid. Better education helps, too.

http://english.sina.com/china/1/2005/0311/24184.html

BEIJING, Mar 11 (AP) -- Weak funding for education and a widening gap between rich and poor is fueling a major rise in juvenile crime in China, a member of China's national legislature was quoted on Friday as saying.

Almost 19 percent of criminal suspects in 2003 were juveniles, up from 11.8 percent in 2000, the state-run newspaper China Daily and other media quoted lawmaker Huang Jingjun as saying.

Huang said rising youth crime was strongly related to the widening gap in recent years between Chinese who have accumulated vast wealth and those who have seen their incomes stagnate, or have fallen into poverty.

Lack of proper upbringing - case study. The father of a close friend was brought up by parents (military ones) who stayed together, sent him to public school, imposed iron discipline, regular corporal punishment for transgressions all in a middle-class (even upper-middle) environment. He ended up with a 13 year sentence for an extremely serious crime (non-violent, however). What caused him to choose (quite deliberately) a criminal profession?