[wonderwonder]

Given a long enough timeline of increased arrests, police presence and assumption of guilt, why would my neighborhood not eventually have the same number of arrests and crime. Unless your argument is that there is something physically different in the other neighborhood that drives them towards crime. If that's your argument and I am having a hard time seeing what else it could be then I think we are done here.

[kortilla]

Of course poor neighborhoods are going to have higher crime. Unless you have been truly poor you won’t understand the sense of desperation that can lead to bad decisions.

You grow up in a food scarce household with a parent addicted to painkillers with no guidance on what a path to a successful future is and crime becomes a lot more palatable. Getting in the game starts to look like the only possible way to “make it”.

[Digit-Al]

I agree. Every time there is an article like this you get the same arguments, the same discussions, and the same comments. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over again.

But if you actually bother to do some reading on the subject the conclusions are overwhelmingly clear. Over and over again social programs show very clearly that if you improve education and give people better opportunities to escape the poverty trap and better themselves you reduce crime.

The formula is simple really: if you give people opportunities to make an honest living then they will, for the most part, make an honest living; if you don't give people the opportunity to make an honest living then they will, for the most part, make a dishonest living.

[wonderwonder]

I agree with you but my question is does increased police presence lead to a poor neighborhood. Take for example a middle class white neighborhood. If there was a sudden and very visible increased presence over years, arresting people for minor offences, watching everyone and questioning everyone, would that neighborhood become a poor neighborhood. I think it would. I think people who could would move out, property values would drop and the people who could not move out would have a higher predisposition to crime as they were worked into the system.