Steady decline in burglaries because "Everybody has everything now"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88074698

by mhb • 18 years ago

32 35 18 years ago

pg• 18 years ago

I've noticed this too. I think the decline has been going on longer than 30 years. It's because stuff isn't valuable anymore.

Alex3917• 18 years ago

As the value of stuff accelerates exponentially toward zero, the only thing that matters is social status. I suspect that in the future most burglaries will fall into one of two categories:

A) The object being stolen confers social status (e.g. iPhone)

B) The act of stealing confers social status in the individual's social circle

BrandonM2• 18 years ago

In most non-hacker circles, an iPhone is just another cell phone, except that it is advertised so much that many are getting annoyed with it. ("Okay, I get it, it's a phone with a browser and it plays music....") For that reason, the idea that an iPhone confers social status really jumps out at me, because it just doesn't seem true.

pchristensen2• 18 years ago

C) The stuff is more liquid - cash, jewelry, etc

aswanson• 18 years ago

What about those of us who couldn't care less about social status? I mean, is everything everybody wants for all time based on status signalling? For me it really hasn't been an issue since middle school.

mynameishere3• 18 years ago

It's because stuff isn't valuable anymore

What are you basing this on? I can't think of anything to really determine the value of "stuff" except for price, and from what I've seen, stuff still has prices attached.

Maybe a good stereo in 1970 was 200 dollars, and today it's (inflation-adjusted) 150 dollars. But even a decline like that doesn't mean it isn't valuable.

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

Look at the number of median wage hours of labor it takes to buy things. It has plummeted. I've known poor grad students that could afford huge TVs.

The punishment for crime has increased, which few people talk about. Most complain about the drug war rightfully, but lots more people are being sent to jail and being kept there for other offenses.

cheaper stuff + stiffer punishments = less crime

davidw2• 18 years ago

Consider also that you have to sell stuff to someone, that selling stolen stuff isn't as easy as selling stuff normally, and that people you are selling to are more likely to already have something quite similar to what you're trying to sell them.

Tichy2• 18 years ago

Last Christmass I considered giving a gift certificate for "relieving you off some stuff".

Seriously, stuff is piling up too fast - ebay is too inefficient for me, for years I have pondered a kind of "garage sale" web service. Just put up a photo of the pile of junk and make it an image map - buyers can just click on the items on the map. It is too much work to fill out a several page form for every item to sell on ebay.

There, I published an idea...

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

Not one mention of the most likely cause, which is demographics. Break-ins are a young person's game, the number of young people have declined.

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

Oh, and just one counterexample to the "Everybody has everything now.":

Canon 1Ds Mark III - 21 megapixels, full frame sensor, $8k.

I lust for it, but don't own one.

pmjordan• 18 years ago

But how big is the black market for one of those?

ojbyrne3• 18 years ago

Dunno. I think that's why they call it a "black" market. I know that Thomas Hawk had his 5D (only $3k for that) stolen while on vacation.

huherto• 18 years ago

And how lucky do you have to be to steal one of those? Will you know it when you see it?

jyu• 18 years ago

how much can you ebay it for?

hernan72• 18 years ago

Yes, but unless the burglar is also some kind of master spy, he will never know which house has a Canon 1Ds Mark III and which hasn't. Usually, I assume a burglar's goal will be much broader -- something like "score some stuff that can be pawned/sold in the black market".

I guess since generic "stuff" (TV, PC, stereo, microwave) is easier to get now, probably there are less buyers in the black market, too. So, less incentive for burglars.

BTW, I think this is great, and I hope this situation spreads to the rest of the world as fast as possible. (You don't want me prattling about growing up poor, trust me.)

pchristensen2• 18 years ago

I'm pretty sure to most thieves it looks just like a $500 Canon DSLR, of which there are thousands per Mark III.

davidw2• 18 years ago

More here:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/03...

hernan72• 18 years ago

Great link, thanks.

ph0rque• 18 years ago

I read a 365tomorrows story that talked about how burglaries of the future will involve the burglars dumping trash in your residence, instead of stealing something.

mynameishere3• 18 years ago

Burglaries per:

 	United Kingdom:   	13.8321 per 1,000 people 

	United States:   	7.09996 per 1,000 people

Murders per:

        United States:          0.042802 per 1,000 people

 	United Kingdom:   	0.0140633 per 1,000 people

My suggestion: The wide availability of guns makes murder easier in the United States (for obvious reasons) and Burglary harder (...since so many homeowners have guns, and shooting burglars is generally legal, burglars tend to avoid the practice.)

mhb• 18 years ago

Or maybe window glass is thicker in the UK or one of another of the zillion other possible explanations for this statistic.

mynameishere3• 18 years ago

Heck, NPR is basing their theory on anecdotes from an ex-con. At least I'm putting up some numbers. Obviously, statistics like the above are a result of extremely complex systems. I tried to compare two countries with similar population make-ups, similar economies, similar legal traditions, etc, but you can only remove so many factors. Actual experimentation in social science, by contrast, tends to result in unholy bloodbaths.

falsestprophet2• 18 years ago

Guns are ubiquitous in Canada, but violent crime rates are dramatically lower. The US murder rate is 2.5 times greater than Canada's.*

I'm sure there are several reasons for this. There are two differences between US and Canadian society that I suspect could be important.

First, the wealth divide is much greater in the US than in Canada (or the UK). Social programs look out for the poor and reduce their desperation.

Second, the US almost uniformly rejects drug treatment as an alternative to long incarceration. Sending drug addicts to prison is just going to train them to become proper criminals.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Canada#United_States

yummyfajitas• 18 years ago

Another important fact, which is politically incorrect to mention.

About 66% of the murders in the US are committed by a demographic group that is unique to the US (1). If you exclude that group, our murder rate is cut in half.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_informatio...

(1) I'm know the racial group exists in both Canada and the UK. The demographic group (race+culture) is uncommon in Canada, and virtually nonexistent in the UK. When looking at the statistics, I'm assuming the 28% of murders with unknown perp are distributed the same as those with a known perp.

sohail• 18 years ago

Freakonomics has an interesting perspective: It is due to the legalization of abortion. The authors do make a good case for it. I tend to lean towards this explanation which amounts to less poor young people.

Tichy2• 18 years ago

That was for crime in general, though. The article here mentioned that the statistics for other crimes were different from burglary.

ilamont• 18 years ago

I can think of a lot of other reasons why burglaries have declined, such as improved street policing and the sharp rise in other types of crime linked to drug use, such as identity theft.

jedberg• 18 years ago

What about the fact that it is far easier to steal your credit card/identity and then just buy the stuff one wants, instead of trying to find someone with the stuff you want and then stealing it.

cellis• 18 years ago

Fear not, as one group of criminals falls, another rises. These new ones don't know how to pick a (physical) lock, but they sure as hell are taking in some serious cash via identity theft.

optimal• 18 years ago

What about the availability of credit? It's probably easier to buy the big TV on credit now than to steal it.

Steady decline in burglaries because "Everybody has everything now"

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