No real think tank can be legitimate without addressing the serious issue of crime in human society. Indeed criminal activity, corruption, and unethical behavior may be an innate part of the human species, that is to say deception seems to be hardwired into the human brain, but it needs to be minimized if we are all going to get along together and make this all work. That is if indeed, we are to have a cohesive society and civilization which will be ongoing.
Not long ago, I was discussing this with an acquaintance, who also believes that crime is a serious issue. Is it the most serious issue of all? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but it does affect every single thing we do in our society, it permeates all industries and is pervasive in all aspects of government. It is a real challenge and a real problem, however it may not be as bad as we think. Often the media in their haste to cause chaos and controversy, and sell more newspapers blows many of the criminal events out of proportion.
Crime in the United States has gone down, but recently I have wondered if future solar flares will increase human brain activity, agitation, and therefore aggression. In other words, during times of solar minimums there is less crime and during times of solar maximum there is more crime, and more conflict, perhaps even more wars in the world.
On another related topic consider this; due to the fact that we have digital cell phones, and everyone carries them around, it's much more difficult for a criminal to get away with something than it was in the past. And because of this fewer criminals are willing to commit acts because they know they will be caught. Still, crime presently in the United States is at an all time low, except for the drug violence that is coming from over the border.
Normally when foreclosure rates go up 1% crime climbs by 2.2% for every 1% additional, however there seems to be anomaly in the data this time around, and the foreclosure rate is at an all-time high but there is a divergence between this trend, when looking at past data. Many criminologists have asked why.
Perhaps, some of that has to do with the television shows of detectives, crime work, and forensics, meaning that people are too afraid to get caught because they think the forensics will catch them because of their DNA, and therefore, the only crimes that occur are ones that are planned out weeks in advance, but since most crimes are done spur of the moment. And a lot of them just don't end up happening because the risk/reward, or the risk of being caught is just too great. Of course, this is all speculation with no empirical evidence to back me up, but it is something to consider.
The computers are getting better and the GIS/GPS systems with data interfaced artificial intelligence software is helping city police departments know where crime may occur, it also helps the FBI with probability and that means resources can be used more wisely. The only thing we have to worry about is that we may someday not have enough for criminals to support the huge amount of police force that we have, but as we create more laws, we inevitably create more criminals, and it becomes a vicious circle.
Many people want to decriminalize things like drugs and other things, while others wish to increase the laws to make certain hate speech a crime. Eventually we have too many rules and too many laws, and therefore, we have fewer freedoms, and it's something we need to watch. It really appears that we are graduating far too many criminal justice majors in the United States from our colleges and universities. This is also a problem. I hope you will consider all this.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes it's hard to write 20,000 articles; http://www.bloggingcontent.net/ - Note: All of Lance Winslow's articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers.
