Crime makes Cry-me

The former U.S. education secretary-turned-talk show host said Wednesday that "if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett quickly added that such an idea would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do." But, he said, "your crime rate would go down."

Bennett's comments came Wednesday, during a discussion on his talk show "Morning in America." A caller had suggested that Social Security would be better funded if abortion had not been legalized in 1973 because the nation would have more workers paying into the system. This is a HOT topic now-a-days in political circle. While his comnent was totally absurd but instead of criticising I thought it would be a good idea to dig on google. And rest of this post is what I found while digging.

Crime in the United States accounts for more death, injuries and loss of property then all Natural Disasters combined. The Disaster Center is pleased to be able to provide you with access to the statistics of crime compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

the victims and their relatives often experience financial problems, and time is often lost from work to handle the legal, insurance and personal problems associated with being a victim. The trauma associated with any crime often makes it hard for victims to cope with normal daily routines. And the victims of crime are frequently blamed by their friends for not being more careful. The trauma continues as victims of crime often find themselves ignored by law enforcement, and confused by the court system

Here are some statistics that demonstrate this:

1. Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.
2. In 2002, there were a total of 4,854 cases of aggravated assault in Washington DC. On a daily basis, this computes to 13.2 aggravated assaults a day.
3. In Maryland, there were 3,228 cases of larceny and thefts per 100,000 people in 2002. This is one-third higher than the national average rate of 2,445.8 cases per 100,000.
4. In Detroit, there were 41.79 murders per 100,000 people in 2002. This is alarmingly way above the national average rate of 5.6 for the same year.
5. In 2002, with the exception of burglaries, Philadelphia led all crime levels which were above the national average rates for murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assaults, larceny/theft and motor vehicle theft.

This is interesting to read Race and Crime in the USa. But I didn't include part of it because this article had the data between 1994-1999. So If you go by this then it wouldn't be hard for Bennett to defend himself, but past is a past and no one should be judge based on this old data.

Based on recent data it looks like there is some improvement. Here is some data what I found for recent time.





The intimate homicide rate has fallen for blacks in every gender and relationship category while the rate for whites has not declined for all categories
The intimate homicide rate --

1. for white girlfriends was about the same in 2002 as it was in 1976
2. for white wives and ex-wives has declined but not as much as that for white husbands and ex-husbands
3. for black husbands and ex-husbands was 16 times greater in 1976 than it was in 2002
4. is higher for black girlfriends than any other group in 2002, although it has declined 58% since 1976

In general, guns are most often used in intimate homicide but weapon type varies by relationship. From 1990 to 2002 --

1. Over two-thirds of the spouse and ex-spouse victims were killed by guns.
2. Boyfriend victims were more likely to be killed by knives than any other group of intimates.
3. Girlfriends are more likely to be killed by force than any other group of intimates.



And at the end, here is data for Murders (per capita) per country



India is 26 on this list (0.03 per 1000 people).

what I believe, We should not judge a race or religion or nation based on wrong doing of handful individuals or groups. Because our comment or decision can lead other innocent people of same race or religion or nation to get suffer.

Source: Uniform Crime Report">, Bureau of Justice Statistics, country based data