I often hear conservatives talking about a strict on crime approach. Would adding UBI, better education programs, and better support for low income individuals and families significantly reduce crime?
I often hear conservatives talking about a strict on crime approach. Would adding UBI, better education programs, and better support for low income individuals and families significantly reduce crime?
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Reduce crime? Definitely. The vast majority? Absolutely not.
I don’t know if a vast majority of crimes would be resolved that way, but a vast majority of small petty crimes likely would. Things like theft tend to go up when goods are difficult to access or out of reach.
For crimes like theft it would be reduced.
Significantly reduce crime? Probably yes.
Vast majority of crime? Probably not.
In my opinion…
People are going to do dumb stuff and try to get away with things. If we help people who need help, then we can probably reduce things like crimes resulting from mental health crises, stealing/shoplifting out of need, drug addicts committing crimes, domestic abuse, and similar things.
But, since the world would feel safer – we could see other crimes increase. People would do more shoplifting or ‘casual’ thefts just to see if they could get away with it. People might take more chances speeding or driving high because they know others are less likely to be driving stolen cars or without insurance. White collar crime might increase since the criminal knows that no matter how broke their victim is, they won’t starve or be homeless.
Pretty much. I would also say it would help people leave abusive relationships/situations too
Violent crime? Yes. White collar crime? No.
In The Social Animal, Brooks doesn’t get too into the weeds on policy, but his take is that helping low-income families should be about more than just money. He really emphasizes things like early childhood support, strong relationships, and emotional development. Basically, it’s not just about cutting checks—it’s about creating environments where people can actually grow and thrive. He’s also pretty skeptical of big, impersonal systems and leans more toward community-based, personal support.
So this being said, better social safety nets could help but they would have to ALL be put into place (better education, more support, community aid and engagement) for there to be a substantial change. Essentially he suggests that by putting a single safety net into play or even just throwing money at the problem blindly you aren’t going to do anything substantial enough to effect the younger generations of people in lower socioeconomic statuses.
You haven’t met criminals have you? Criminals choose to not follow laws. Doesn’t matter if they are gang bangers in the hood, or some corporate pirate in the C suite building a ponzi scheme. No social net is going to stop them.
You can punish them, not to deter criminals, but normal folks who woukd say well if they can do this and not get in trouble, so will I. Because when that happens your society implodes.
Some types of crime, yes.
But not any sort of “white collar” or corporate crime.
Criminal defense attorney here. I was a public defender for almost a decade. Most of my clients were not necessarily bad people, just poor people who had drug problems and made dumbass decisions.
Here’s the problem. We can’t cure drug addictions or mental illness. So you either just tolerate them (along with all their downsides and costs), or you force the people who can’t function in society because of them into some kind of controlled environment. Like a jail or a hospital.
We don’t like imprisoning people who aren’t dangerous. Some random druggie guy who is just shoplifting and not much else? Locking him away for years and years seems wrong. But left to his own devices, he would much rather do drugs and have fun than go to rehab multiple times for months on end. He’s gotta hit rock bottom first.
Really bad neighborhoods with lots of violent crime? That might require completely demolishing the area and moving people away. Except we tried that before and it was a horrible failure, and made the problems much worse. Bad idea.
Not a chance. Some people prefer crime to actually working. Look at how many “white collar” crimes take place and look how many of our current ruling billionaire class is committing crimes.
Yeah. Some people just can’t be civilized, but a little more dignity and a lot less desperation go a long way towards preventing crime.
Some might be but not the vast majority.
People like to argue the point your making or asking about. But the truth is some people just commit crime and you have to be tough on those people. It’s crazy that sometimes police have “regulars” they run into constantly.
That doesn’t mean we can’t try to correlate implementing some of these things in a controlled fashion to see whether they would have the theorized effects.
Good education and job placement will always be better than no education and rampant unemployment.
Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.
Maybe not a majority. Allowing women to choose plays a big role too.
Most crime is crimes of poverty and desperation. Get rid of poverty, you get rid of the main reason people commit crime.
This wouldn’t fix crimes of greed (white collar crime and corruption) or passion.
In many situations yes. Just compare your countries stats to countries that have a lower floor (the distance you could fall if you need a medical procedure, lose your job etc.). Desperate people do desperate things. Though stupid people also do stupid things, so there’s morons everywhere. It might not be able to be eliminated, but petty crime leading to murder at least greatly is reduced. Where I’m currently visiting, people are killing each other over the dumbest shit. Pizza delivered to wrong house. Road rage “I know, I’ll follow that person and shoot up their car”. It’s completely insane and over reacting all the damn time.
Each and every social good that improves the world reduces crime. Those would help, and other things too.
Certainly survival crimes. It would probably also mitigate domestic violence and deaths that result from it, because abuse victims would have more resources to leave.
But, the powers that be in America do not truly want to lower crime. Lowering crime is a virtue signaling/lip service talking point.
Yes and the peripherals involved with better social safety nets include better living environments which includes getting proper nutrition, being free of lead contamination, and having less latch key kids that can easily be influenced or pressured to join “neighborhood gangs.”
yes.
a lot of crime is based on material needs and inability to make their way by legitimate means.
provide for those needs and offer legitimate pathways to self sufficiency and most ppl will chose that over the risks of going to prison.
of course there will always be sociopaths who “enjoy” getting away with criminal behavior (looking hard at the c-suite crowd here), but they are a minority of criminals in my view.
To figure this out you’d have to find the percentage of crime that happens out of necessity which can be hard to determine
And an internet temperance movement
No, we all would be better off though. These are loaded, chickenshit questions.
Yes… That and better education. People who have enough and have something to lose? And a decent education? Do a lot fewer crimes…
And even more than that… People with enough have fewer stresses and more options, and so are less likely to abuse or stay with abusers raising a damaged generation of people who grow up needing to do more crimes…
So, yea… Good safety nets would have a huge short term effect, but making sure fewer people fall in the first place would have an even bigger longer term effect.
It would help immensely. After working in the prison system I feel like around 75% are crimes made by people out of desperation, mental health issues or just made a mistake.
The vast majority of crimes are being committed by people wearing suits in Washington DC.
America is the wealthiest nation in the planet and could easily provide shelter, food and healthcare to all its citizens.
American’s chose not to do this.
Billionaires and homeless people shouldn’t exist in the same society.
It was a long time ago now, but when they looked into the single biggest factor in reducing crime in the U.K. a while back it was found to be youth clubs.
Crime is most often caused by systemic disenfranchisement and poverty. Better social safety nets AND widespread education of their existence would make a massive difference on crime rates.
I’ve worked in criminal defense for a decade. I’ve met a few people who are straight up predators who would probably commit crimes in any environment, but the vast majority of crimes are the result of people not having access to housing and healthcare.
They believe that by penalizing those who break the law (regardless of what that law is) you give people an incentive to not break the law. This puts the onus on the individual; it is our job as citizens to not break the law, it is not the state’s job to try and prevent people from getting into desperate circumstances.
Yes. I’d bet it would drop by 97+ percent.
Crimes of desperation, naturally, would also go down. So would petty survival crime. But there’s another factor, too—it would make it harder for predators to find victims. There are still horrible people who would be horrible, if they could get away with it, no matter how much money they had. But our insanely cruel non-UBI society gives those horrible people an endless supply of vulnerable people.
This is true even where poverty isn’t directly involved. The reason Nordic people can safely leave babies outside to nap when they go into stores and restaurants is that poverty’s nonexistence also means there is general social trust. And that social trust makes violence extremely rare. When people think of their neighbors as competition for jobs and housing, as in a society like ours, they aren’t as likely to watch each other’s back—but in a Nordic-style society where it would be extremely rare for someone to think that way, it’s a lot harder for predatory people to move around and do what they do.
Consider also that 90+ percent of the men on the right wing are motivated not by a hatred of the poor, per se, since a lot of them are pushing politics against their economic interests and know it, but instead by the desire to subjugate women. The reason they don’t want UBI is that they want women in financial destitution so they can be violent little tyrants in their own houses. I’m not saying that all of conservatism is explained by this impulse, but if this impulse didn’t exist, this country (and every developed country) would be far, far to the left, since humans in general tend to detest hierarchy and inequality.
Not all crimes, but a lot of them for sure. It’s a silly example, but Breaking Bad wouldn’t exist with universal healthcare.
Without question, yes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It’s been tried, resulted in people wanting to remain in that system and resulting to crime for extra money because legal money removed their benefits
UBI could be the new superhero: Captain Crime-Crush
I work in a prison. 90% of the drug offenders do not have a high school diploma and the handful that do most of them don’t have post secondary education. If post secondary was free it would cut down on a lot of drug crime.
It sure as shit wouldn’t hurt
I believe they would help a great deal. If done well, they also help lift people out of multi-generational poverty. Which is a very strong net gain for the country.
Sadly, the US is speedrunning in the opposite direction, with DOGE tearing down massive amounts of government services for no good reason. Unless you are running a for-profit company that will gladly provide those services, for a fee.
We have to pay for the 4 TRILLION dollar tax cut for the ultra-rich somehow, right? The first trillion in his first term wasn’t enough.
Yes
No. I think people are just average and will do good or evil when it suits them. Most want to believe that they themselves are good. And some folks are purely altruistic. Others are rotten. Good people can do bad things on rare occasional, but that is out of character. Bad people can do good things, too. All the programs to help would be staffed by – who? People. And people are just average and will do good or evil when it suits them….
I think so, yes. Economics drives so much of human behavior and the trauma of poverty leads people to all sorts of maladaptive shit.
It wouldnt resolve it, but it would help, but it also might raise the costs of products so people will have more $$ but it wont be worth as much
Even rich people steal and exploit to get more $$, people are typically never satisfied and always want more and more
If UBI is based on children i bet people would have kids just to get more UBI, i think you can get UBI for 2 children max, anymore is too bad, but then people would prob abuse it, the dad would take 2 kids, and the mom would take 2 and perhaps even live separately, or just rent a house to prove to the courts that they have separate homes but then they would just rent the house to people instead
It would keep a lot of people from getting into theft for sure. There’s so many crimes other than theft though.
Unpopular opinion – In the USA the vast majority of crime would be resolved through traffic enforcement.
We take the externalities of cars and driving for granted because we are several generations into brainwashing into a cult of dependency on government automotive infrastructure, but cars are one of the leading causes of death in the USA, a major cause of disability, and that’s just directly through collisions, not including stuff like poisoning the entire population with burning lead for decades.
People will freak out over doorstep package theft but don’t expect serious enforcement of “minor” driving infractions that actually put other people’s lives and health at risk. Drivers kill as many Americans every day as the worst mass-shooting in US history but ever fatal collision gets a shrug. We also see normalization of antisocial behavior like road rage, generally selfish behavior, impolite or outright dangerous etiquette on the road, etc.
Getting serious about enforcing traffic laws and holding drivers accountable for violence, death and property damage would be the ultimate Broken Windows policing for American society.
But but but but but but…..that’s SoCiaLiSm
A fairly major town in Manitoba., Canada did the UBI experiment.
Every adult in town got $1000/month in addition to whatever wage they were making for a year.
Crime dropped, substance abuse dropped, school absences dropped, unemployment dropped, general economy boomed.
Then social conservatives were elected to the provincial government, who shut the program down as ‘socialism’, and burned all the research documents.
The town promptly went to hell.
yes….to some degree. most people dont want to do crime, most people are forced to for some reason or another. if they had legal alternatives, most people would choose to do them.
would someone rob a store if they earned 120k a year and lived comfortably in NYC? almost certainly not.
there are exceptions, people who would have done it anyway, but u can account for them. mostly white collar people who embezzle when they dont need to etc
Freshmen in Greek life make up only 1.9% of the student body but are involved in 26-32% of campus crime, with high representation in hazing, alcohol offenses, and sexual assault. For this reason, Princeton, Bucknell, and other colleges have banned freshmen from fraternities and sororities.
Most criminals were corporally punished at home as a child.
For some offenses, locking up the offender so they can’t re-offend is the social safety net. Such offenses are child abuse, domestic violence, medical malpractice, police brutality.
Criminals love to target crowded urban areas with easy targets. NYC, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and San Diego.
A lot of crime is motivated by religion.
Requiring companies to rehire laid off ex-employees could be a social safety net.
I knew plenty of rich kids who committed crimes. The key piece was always the same as middle class or lower class kids, the parents were either not around and/or horrible parents.
I can’t remember a time where the parent was a great parent and the kid turned out horrible. I’m sure there are exceptions to every rule but the majority I am looking back on in my life, my kids’ life’s, etc it’s been a very common theme that money doesn’t fix. It’s hard work being a solid parent and role model.
Basically yeah.
Now these moves would not prevent all crime and it’s important to maintain realistic views of how this would work. Crimes born of poor socialization, unchecked greed, or general lack of forethought would still occur. However a majority of crimes don’t happen for those reasons in the first place.
Most crime comes as a reaction to the circumstances surrounding he person committing the crime not for shits and giggles.
Drug abuse for example is much more common in places with severe poverty and social isolation where there aren’t any healthy outlets for the frustration that creates. Abuse happens because abusing drugs provides a temporary escape from the harsh reality of a person’s life letting them feel less awful for a while, and then you get addictions from that which worsen the situation by creating a compulsion to abuse further. By contrast providing people healthy outlets for frustration and lifting them out of poverty drastically reduces abuse of drugs on the whole, doesn’t eliminate it entirely but again realistic expectations.
This was initially shown to be the case in studies on addiction involving animals, rats in particular. Given a bare cage with two bottles of water one of which was laced with opiods the rats would develop drug habits eventually leading to death. However given a furnished cage with plenty of other stuff to do the rats would only occasionally indulge in the drugged watee and never in a manner that escalated far enough to damage their health. Followup studies on current and former drug addicts showed startling parallels that bore out the same pattern in humans just with greater nuance.
Same goes for robbery, theft, any form of stealing really. Most people won’t commit any major form of theft for their own amusement but if in a situation of poverty with no clear realistic path out of poverty they’ll begin resorting to theft for survival and in attempts to escap. By contrast even people who are impoverished that given a clear path out of poverty like job programs and other governmental assistance don’t resort to crime anywhere near as often. The comparison between governments that do and don’t offer assistance along with crime right under otherwise similar circumstances make the matter quite clear.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Being desperate and having nothing to lose makes the shift to crime much easier. Why not? You were a good person and you’re getting fucked left and right. Maybe being a good person isn’t “good”?
A successful social safety net gives people enough comfort when times are hard so that they don’t resort to theft, scams, worse to survive. They don’t crabs in a barrel each other.
And a successful country offers ample opportunities to its citizens so that the net doesn’t become a hammock.
Maybe but it is morally acceptable to pay people to not commit crimes? For example, robbery. Pay me not to rob you or I will rob you. Also POTUS is a felon so maybe not.
So here’s a study on “poverty, inequality, crime, and social expenditures in a panel of 16 countries”
https://journalofeconomicstructures.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40008-020-00220-6
They attribute a decrease in crime in the USA from 2010-2014 to safety net programs. “[A]s education and health reforms considerably reduce crime rate during the time period.”
The truth is our prison and criminal justice systems are currently our safety net. Prisons and jails house and provide healthcare to homeless addicts. Courts provide low income people access to free mental health and addiction treatment.
It would be much much cheaper to just give people free/affordable housing, healthcare and child care up front – and would greatly increase everyone’s freedom. It would keep the people on the margins of society from harming themselves and others, and the folks who were already doing just okay will be much less stressed and much better workers and consumers. And that’s the most important thing we can be in our society!
Eliminating poverty would probably resolve 90 ish percent of crime