We have plenty of good research that shows how to reduce violence; however, it's virtually absent from the mass media; and if you Google something like "Most effective ways to stop violence" many of the first results, including some from police departments, ignore the long term causes of violence and focus on simple easy to understand prevention methods, that at best stops violence just barely before it happens, and ignore the most effective solutions. This includes recommending neighborhood watches, staying in well lit places, and improving relations with police, perhaps looking to them for expertise, even though they don't recognize the long term causes of violence.
Addressing the long term contributing causes of violence is complicated, and will take time to explain the details; but, it helps to start with a few simple points. This will be followed up by additional details and links to sources that confirm how well it could work if we based policy decisions on the best science. There are a few examples where some of the best police officers recognize this and recommend social solutions like preventing child abuse, poverty, or improving education.
1. Minimize or eliminate early child abuse, including corporal punishment, which often leads to other forms of child abuse and violence, including much higher murder rates in areas where it's used more. Since at least 1991, on average, the murder rates have always been higher in the states still allowing corporal punishment in school, and presumably using it more at home. It was at it's closest in 1992 when the difference was only 2.26%, and it's been growing since then breaking a record in both 2018, when the murder rates were 32% higher in states still allowing it in states allowing it than those banning it, and breaking another record in 2019, with a difference of 36%. There's also a much lower rate in European states that banned corporal punishment in both schools and at home, often with less than one fifth of our murder rate.
Like many other social problems, it will cost far less to address this contributing cause, and a few others before they escalate than it will cost to ignore it; one study by Robert Zagar and Hughes Grove, and cited by James Garbarino, below, shows that "for every dollar invested in diverting a high-risk kid from the pathway that leads to murder, more than six dollars are saved in the future monetary costs associated with killing." Other studies, also cited below, show that it costs far less to address homelessness and drug addition, which are both contributing causes to violence, than it costs to ignore them.
2. Improve education and child care for everyone, not just those that can afford it. A glance at many of the countries that provide better child care including Australia, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, etc. shows that they have much lower crime rates and higher quality of living than the United States. There are also studies, some listed below, showing that increased funding on education, child care and other programs targeting at risk parents reduces violence and, once again saves money on other social problems including violence and prison costs. In one case after another politicians that claim to be "fiscal conservatives" are constantly trying to cut funds for programs that solve social problems and save money and increase funds for prisons and police by much larger amounts, which is obviously costing much more than they save.
3. Reduce poverty and income inequality partly by increasing the minimum wage, reducing outsourcing, and exposing many other ways corporations suppress wages for the working class. There are plenty of studies showing that where there are higher rates of poverty or income inequality there are, on average, higher rates of crime or violence. It stands to reason that successful efforts to reduce poverty and income inequality will lead to reductions in crime and violence. Some studies have confirmed this, including one over twenty years ago and another one cited by the White House, and posted on their web page in May 2016. However, this was followed up by other opinion articles or studies saying it would actually increase crime, in some cases, because of people that would lose their jobs as a result of higher wages. Some of these articles or studies come from sources that have an obvious conflict of interests; and I suspect a close look indicates thatt ehy may not be a scientific as they seem; although, it would require a close look to fact check the studies. In "Republic Lost" Lawrence Lessig reported that studies that were financed by industries with a financial interest were more likely than those without a financial interest to come to conclusions that favor the industry or financial interest.
Furthermore, the study posted in May of 2016 on the White House web site was available at least until January 12th, the last day the Wayback Machine crawled it and saved a copy; but it was taken down by about 6:00 PM on January 20th six hours after Donald Trump was inaugurated; which means that either the Obama administration removed it in their last week or the Trump administration began removing studies in the first few hours after they were in power. I reported previously, in another article about how some research about studies on PTSD were also removed after the Trump administration took power. This is a further indication that those with a financial interest are suppressing good research that impacts their profits.
Since poverty is a clear contributing factor for crime and violence, it's reasonable to assume that anything that increases poverty, including white collar crime, legal or not, will also be a contributing cause of crime and violence, therefore they should be prevented. This means that our economic system should be revised. This includes many practices supported by oligarchs to suppress wages for the working class, including outsourcing so local workers have to compete with workers in the poorest and most oppressed part of the world, often taking advantage of lax labor and environmental laws; or the advertising industry which obviously doesn't maximize profits by being honest, using propaganda tactics to fool credulous consumers, and many other aspects of our economic system.
4. Addressing homelessness in a much more effective manner will clearly help reduce crime and violence, and as Finland has shown, it can also save a lot more money than it costs to solve it. As I went into in a previous article, cited below, for the past twelve years they've been providing housing first for homeless people and helping them get back on their feet. With a home they're better able to get jobs and become functioning citizens. Ignoring the problem or using band aid solutions, like the United States does, leads to many other expenses related to homelessness which costs far more. Based on studies from Finland, I estimated that, if we can get similar results, we can reduce homelessness and save 9.7 billion dollars a year, for starters; in the long run as rates of homelessness go down the saving could even grow. Furthermore, if the economy wasn't rigged in favor of the wealthy in the first place, we wouldn't have as much of a problem with it in the first place and we would have already have saved much more money.
5. Treating drug addiction instead of criminalizing it. Portugal has demonstrated that this is much more successful than the way we handle it in the United States. I also went into this in a previous article, listed below; they put there programs in place about twenty years ago, and might have had some problems in the first few years, but after ten to twenty years their success at treating drug addiction improved dramatically and once again, saved many lives and more money than it costs. There's no study, that I know of, showing how much money the Portugal program saved and how much it would save in the United states if we implemented it here, although there's no doubt it saved a lot. But we have only four percent of the worlds population and twenty-five percent of the prison population, costing at least eighty billion dollars a year, with one study saying the total costs for it is closer to one-hundred-eighty billion if you count all related costs, so there's little doubt that the potential to save dozens of billions of dollars is there, and many of drug addicts that return to the work force could save even more by becoming productive citizens.
6. Reasonable gun control, which is supported by sixty to eighty percent of the public, depending on which policies they are, can save an enormous amount of lives, and money. This is the only partial solution that traditional media spends much if any time discussing, although they quickly forget it if we go a while without a mass shooting. However, this shouldn't be considered the whole solution, as the media often implies, by refusing to cover other contributing factors to violence. There's good reason to believe that if we make it harder, if not impossible, to get automatic guns and exceptionally large clips that mass shooters won't be able to shoot nearly as many people, assuming they can get a hold of a gun and other shootings, which are far more common, will be rarer if fewer people have guns, including those that can't pass a background check.
There are plenty of studies, including some cited below, showing that states with reasonable gun gun control have lower murder rates and an even larger reduction in suicide rates. However, gun control alone, won't stop all violence, since angry people can still carry out violence in other ways, including stabbings, beating people to death, vehicular homicide, and even some shootings with the guns that will still be available. This is why addressing the other contributing causes of violence is as important, if not more important. This is especially true when considering the fact that child abuse poverty and pother contributing factors also contribute to other social problems as well.
7. Don't train people, including veterans and police officers, to solve all problems with violence, especially in wars based on lies. Many of the best veterans and police officers may agree with this and are more concerned with finding non-violent ways to resolve problems. Unfortunately, due to authoritarian training many others may not; and domestic violence has been higher among both veterans and police officers, and often when they strike out violently the most common victims are often other veterans and police officers or their family members, or in the case of police, suspects, often minorities.
David Swanson has checked the mass shootings and found that veterans are the shooters significantly more often than the rest of the population and David Philips, author of "Lethal Warriors" and the New York Times has reported on how much more likely veterans with PTSD or other emotional problems are more likely to go on murder sprees, often without as much media coverage as mass shootings. I went into my own review, and although I couldn't find a thorough conclusive statistical study showing veterans are charged with murder more often than non-veterans, there's an enormous amount of evidence to show that they're at least as likely, of not more likely to be charged with murder, even though the vast majority of them are recruited from rural areas where the murder rates are lower.
8. Educate the public more about how organized gambling, including the lottery contributes to other social problems, including compulsive gambling, poverty, higher crime, including many murders related to gambling; and how organized gambling organizations can't stay in business and make a profit unless they rig the odds in their own favor. When the mafia controlled most organized gambling industries it was recognized as a vice and the media would report on how it contributed to other kinds of crime. Now that corporations or the government control most gambling industry, they have a financial incentive to downplay the amount of crime is related to this industry and how it contributes to other social problems. The best research on this is buried where almost no one sees it, while the media collects a fortune selling deceptive ads to encourage problem gambling and politicians collect and enormous amount of campaign donations from the gambling industry, so the most powerful institutions distort the truth about it.
9. Educate the public about the fundamentals of insurance and how it provides a massive incentive for fraud and even murder. Like gambling they put all the money they collect from premiums, instead of bets, subtrack expenses, then return what's left to consumers in the form of claims, assuming they approve them. The more they spend on advertising, legal expenses, high CEO pay, or return to stock holders the less they have to pay claims which is highly inefficient. Furthermore, there are almost certainly well over a hundred people killed every year in attempts to collect life insurance if not closer eight or nine hundred or more.
Five percent of the killers on Murderpedia killed in an attempt to collect insurance, and over twenty percent (or one percent of all murderers) of those successfully collected on those claims, at least for a while, before eventually getting caught. There's no guarantee that this is statistically representative, but if it is that would come to about 800 people killed in 2019 for insurance and about 160 killers that would collect on those murders, for a little while, and we would have know way of knowing how many people successfully got away with murder and never got caught. There's little or no discussion in the media or political discussions about how insurance routinely provides an incentive for crime and violence; instead there's an assumption that removing regulations without considering the purposes of those regulations enable corporations to serve us better, almost like a cult belief; however the selective removal of regulations is typically to increase profits for campaign donors without consideration of potential damage to the vast majority of the public. They even push insurance for children and pets, which inevitably leads to a small percentage of emotionally unstable people killing their children or pets in attempts to collect insurance when they get desperate. There were at least thirty unstable parents who killed their children over the past sixty or seventy years for insurance, and a total of over fifty kids killed; in some cases they successfully collected money for these policies before eventually getting caught, sometimes after trying it again.
10. Demand full disclosure for union busting tactics, especially since the vast majority of jobs in most industries is controlled by a relatively small number of oligarchs, despite the claim that we ahve a "free enterprise system" where everyone can compete fairly. Union busting has a long history of leading to violence, on both sides, although the worst of it is often from union busters or police, even if they create more propaganda making the unions seem worse.
Marty Jay Levitt explained a lot of the dirty tricks he previously participated in "Confessions of a Union Buster." At the beginning of his book he describes how workers started fighting with each other and how one of them went into the office and started throwing things and shooting the place up, without hitting an y people, before the police took him away. The dirty tricks that he participated in were a leading cause of this. He had found out about the Union drive before the coal company and claims that he was able to talk him into hiring him and paying him $1,000 per day plus a $10,000 despite the fact that the owner "complained, I've never known anybody worth a thousand dollars a day.' Then he barked at the secretary, Dottie to make me out a check for $10,000. He offered his hand and commanded, 'You’re in charge.'” (p.11) He was willing to spend a fortune to suppress a union, but not spend that money to treat his employees more fairly. There are some doubts about some of the claims by Levitt; however, there are plenty of other sources indicating that union busting is expensive and confirming many of the details of his practices.
One of the tactics that union busters use is to portray unions as corrupt and greedy, as if corporations and union busters aren't corrupt and greedy, and to constantly remind them that if they formed a union they would have to pay union dues. Many union supporters dismiss this as anti-union propaganda, which is partly true; however, there's a strong possibility that union corruption, which does exist in some cases, may actually be a union busting tactic. Levitt may have dropped a hint of this in his book when he claims that his first employer as a union buster was John Sheridan, a former union organizer. This is far from the only time a union organizer has gone to work for union busting organizations, some of which I've read about previously, although I couldn't find the sources, but there's some evidence to show that many union leaders aren't doing a good job representing workers, often endorsing politicians like Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton who have little or no respect for workers rights, unless they're on the campaign trail.
When there is corruption from union organizers it obviously plays into the hands of union busters, whether or not the union busters are encouraging it. If you google "embezzlement of union funds" you'll find plenty of examples, so full disclosure of union activities, within reason should also be required, especially if there's evidence that many union leaders who aren't looking out for the best interests of workers. One example is when Richard Trumka opposed the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and when Randi Weingarten and three other high profile union leaders voted against it on the Democratic Party platform despite the fact that they both have a large amount of support among the public including workers they represent. Nevada union workers demonstrated they can do a far better job than their elected leaders when, despite deceptive claims from union leaders trying to smear Medicare for All, which would have eliminated the health insurance policies they partly controlled, they voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders and showed they supported Medicare for All. Both Weingarten and Trumka have a history of accepting the establishment front runners from the begging even though there are almost always more progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders that do a far better job defending workers and opposing outsourcing and Charter Schools among other things.
We need far more control at the Grassroots with full disclosure, so we can be Rainier that union leaders actually represent the workers, and when they don't they should be voted out. Weingarten, Trumka and many other union leaders shouldn't have life time tenor even when they don't serve workers well. David Sirota pointed out that corporations were trying to force unions to provide excessive disclosures that included petty revelations in "Hostile Takeover" while they continued to shroud all their business practices in secrecy, which is obviously hypocritical. If corporations wanted to defend workers from the fraud of their union leaders they should be willing to provide the same disclosure themselves, especially since their union busting tactics are far more secretive, deceptive and often illegal.
Honorable Mention: One thing that doesn't work as a deterrent is the death penalty. The states with the highest murder rates have, on average, more support for the death penalty than the states with the lowest murder rates. In most, if not all, of the murders resulting in a death sentence, they're not taking into consideration whether they'll be executed or held accountable, and they almost always have severe emotional problems that haven't been addressed before it was too late. There's good reason to believe the lack of effort addressing the root causes of violence also contribute to the desire for vengeance, which includes support for the death penalty even though evidence shows it doesn't solve problems and even costs much more, due to legal costs, than life in prison.
There's an enormous amount of good research to show how effective most of these practices could be at reducing violence; however, it's almost completely absent from traditional media nor is it used to make important political decisions. Fortunately it is available in the academic world, libraries and alternative media outlets, many cited in sources for each solution below. The most notable exception is research on how insurance provides an incentive to commit crime. The vast majority of reporting on insurance fraud simply ignores the fact that insurance provides an incentive for this fraud, and the fact that insurance has to rig the odds in their own favor, just like gambling. Nevertheless, I was able to find an enormous volume of cases where people killed for insurance or committed other forms of insurance fraud. In many cases it was insiders including insurance agents, police officers, or other professionals, including people in the medical industry that commit a large portion of the fraud costing consumers a fortune. By ignoring this problem they miss opportunities to solve the problem, at least partially; however, part of that solution would involve stopping the enormous profits for insurance companies and the share they give to both media outlets and politicians who are stonewalling solutions.
The research for veterans is also scarce, although not quite as scarce as it is for insurance; but there's an enormous amount of propaganda or biased research to confuse the issue. Nevertheless the New York Times, David Philips, author of "Lethal Warrior" and David Swanson all provided some good research which can be fact checked, and I did some additional research myself. Research about union busting contributing to violence is more scarce than the first seven solutions, but even those seven are absent from traditional media, despite the fact that there's an enormous amount of research in the academic world, libraries and alternative media available for them to report.
The reason for this is because our media system isn't nearly as concerned with serving the public's best interests by providing the best educational material to enable them to solve social problems and make informed decisions in a democratic system as they are with maximizing profits. Nor do politicians serve the best interest of the public, instead catering to the interests of their campaign donors. Regrettably, we have a Machiavellian oligarchy system, where the vast majority of "viable candidates" for most political offices, especially the presidency and statewide offices in large states are chosen by corporations, not the public, thinly disguised as a democracy. Instead of using the most credible research to learn how to reduce violence and save money the oligarchs are trying to "keep the citizens poor," as Machiavelli recommended, and uneducated, so it easier to control them. And they also come up with lots of distractions like sports or celebrity worship.
Fortunately, many well informed people at the local level managed to learn more about how to prevent violence, which is why they have lower crime rates than other parts of the country, which I went into in Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit. There are many parts of the country with much lower murder and crime rates than other parts of the country, enabling researchers to study what they do differently and find out what works. The same can be done to compare policies to other countries that solve social problems much more effectively and have much lower rates of violence and higher quality of life. In some cases, Like Richmond California, which I covered in the article I just cited, that have dramatically reduced their crime rates as a result of community organizing, standing up to corporations and solving other social problems before they escalate. At their worst Richmond had murder rates that were seven or eight time the national average; but after reforms at the grassroots they cut that by 60% by the time I wrote that article, and it has dropped even more since then, with a couple years less than double the national average. They still have room for improvement, of course, but few, if any abandoned inner cities have ever cut their crime rates so dramatically in such a short time.
The following are some sources for this article, including several studies showing that we can save money by solving problems before they escalate; following a few general articles about crime prevention they're organized according to the ten methods to reduce violence listed above. Some of them are my past articles, which include additional sources that have been peer reviewed:
7 Ways to Stop Violence at Every Age 10/01/2012
World Health Organization: Violence prevention: the evidence.
National PTA 10 Things You Can Do to Prevent Violence in Your School Community
How can we prevent violence?
24 ways to reduce crime in the world’s most violent cities 06/30/2015
6 proven policies for reducing crime and violence without gun control 07/19/2016
Los Angeles PD: Ten Things Adults Can Do To Stop Violence
Project Safe Neighborhoods: 10 Things You Can Do To Prevent Violence
How to Reduce Crime 03/01/1984 The welfare state does not respect private property. It takes from the politically uninfluential and gives to the politically influential. Redistribution by government is not called stealing, though the same act is if performed by a private individual rather than a government official. Neither shoplifters nor more serious criminals think of themselves as stealing; they say that they just “take” things. In a way, they are right because crime and most of what takes place under the heading of politics amount to the same thing.
Five Things We Can Do to Reduce Domestic Violence 09/14/2014
BEST PRACTICES FOR THE PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMICIDE AND SEVERE YOUTH VIOLENCES 2010
Children’s Safety Network: Youth Violence Prevention
Studies Show That Violence Prevention Saves Cities Money — Lots of Money 06/04/2020
Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media
The School-to-Prison Pipeline, Part I: An introduction 09/24/2019
1. preventing child abuse:
Other work by Zagar demonstrated that by intervening to divert high risk youths from this predictive pathway, lives and money can be saved. In Chicago, a program that invested in jobs, mentoring, and anger management programs for youths identified as at high risk for becoming killers resulted in a 43 percent reduction in the number of shootings and a 77 percent drop in the number of assaults (compared to what would have occurred if the investment were not made in the kids identified by Zagar's predictive model).
Where can the money for such preventive efforts come from? The cost-benefit analysis presented by Zagar's research offers a clean answer: for every dollar invested in diverting a high-risk kid from the pathway that leads to murder, more than six dollars are saved in the future monetary costs associated with killing. This figure parallels what prenatal home visits by health professionals save by preventing child abuse and neglect, according to research conducted by David Olds, John Eckenrode,and their colleagues. (Child psychologist James Garbarino "Listening to Killers 2015 p.245)
The Pew Research Forum found that any incarceration rate above the range of 350 to 500 per 100,000 were not only counterproductive, but when it comes to addressing crime, it is actually counter productive. In addition to being racially discriminatory and counterproductive, it is extremely expensive.
...
This chart shows what we waste in putting money on the table. This shows that if you reduce the African American incarceration rate to 500 per 100,000, which is the top you can do before you have gone into counterproductive, if you do the back-of-the-envelope arithmetic and targeted the money to the one-third of the children that are actually at risk, that you could save in the top 10 States approximately $10,000 per child per year that you are spending on counterproductive incarceration.
Now we know we can do better. The research shows that if you focus in the appropriate investments as the Youth PROMISE Act requires, that you can reduce crime by having a focus on the continuum of support for juveniles starting with teen pregnancy prevention, which will reduce the number of children born into dysfunctional families; prenatal care, reduces mental health and mental retardation problems. Early childhood education and programs like that , getting children off on the right track and keeping them on the right track, will not only reduce crime , but save more money than it spends. Youth Prison Reduction Through Opportunities, Mentoring, p.7
Evidence Is In; Corporal Punishment Should Be Banned!
Ignored evidence linking corporal punishment, poverty and crime grows
2. improving education and child care:
New study shows early learning helps prevent crime 10/25/2012
The Long-term Benefits of Education as a Crime-prevention Measure 05/17/2016
Education Opportunities in Prison Are Key to Reducing Crime 02/02/2018
Education Spending Per Student by State 2016 I haven't crunched the numbers; however, at a glance, it's clear that most of the states with the lowest murder rates spend more on education, on average than those with the highest murder rates. There are some exceptions, but seven of the states in the top ten for murder rates are in the bottom half for education spending; and, seven of the ten states with the lowest murder rates are in the top half for education spending. A couple of the exceptions are Utah and Idaho, which spend the least on education and are typically in the bottom ten for murder rates; however, they don't have other major contributing causes for violence like abandoned inner cities with murder rates that often get to three or four times the national average, and higher. Exception like Washington DC and Maryland, which spend more on education, but have more problems with abandoned inner cities are also exceptions with higher murder rates.
Understanding the True Cost of Child Care for Infants and Toddlers 11/15/2018 In addition to the immediate impact of affordable, high-quality child care, researchers find that access to this care produces significant societal savings for decades into the future. Participants are more likely to have improved health outcomes, increased future earnings, and reduced crime rates, meaning each dollar spent on early childhood programs is paid back several times over.14
Would it ever be possible to have universal childcare in the United States? 09/13/2019
3 Women On What It's Actually Like To Have Universal Childcare 05/17/2019
Childcare around the world: How other countries do it better 09/13/2018
Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia and Portugal rank highest for family-friendly policies in OECD and EU countries 06/12/2019
A Universal Child Allowance: A Plan to Reduce Poverty and Income Instability Among Children in the United States 02/01/2019
Why the federal government should subsidize childcare and how to pay for it 03/09/2017
The Economics of Investing in Universal Preschool Education in California 2005
Does lack of education increase violent crime? Religion?
3. Reducing poverty, income inequality and increasing the minimum wage:
Higher Youth Wages Mean Lower Crime Rates November 1997 According to a recent study on Market Wages and Youth Crime (NBER Working Paper No. 5983) by NBER Faculty Research Fellow Jeffrey Grogger, there is a strong relationship between wage levels and criminal behavior, which explains why, over the past 20 years, crime rates for young men have increased while their wages have decreased. This also at least partially explains why the crime rate is higher for blacks than whites.
White House Says Increasing Minimum Wage Could Reduce Crime 05/03/2016
Economic Perspectives On Incarceration And The Criminal Justice System May 2016 Estimates from research suggest that a 10 percent increase in the high school graduation rate leads to a 9 percent drop in arrest rates, and a 10 percent increase in wages for non-college educated men leads to a 10 to 20 percent reduction in crime rates. (This study was cited in the previous article and posted on a government web cite in May 2016; it was still available on January 12th, 2017 which was the last date the Wayback Machine saved it. On January 20th a few hours after Donald Trump was inaugurated the Wayback Machine crawled it and it was no longer available.)
Seattle is a guinea pig for $15 minimum wage. Here's what the latest research shows 10/23/2018
Do Minimum Wage Increases Reduce Crime? March 2019
Minimum Wage Hikes Increase Crime, National Bureau of Economic Research Study Finds 03/19/2019
Minimum wage: Updated research roundup on the effects of increasing pay 11/0/2020
Why raising the minimum wage is good for everyone in North Carolina 03/18/2019
Raise the Minimum Wage, Reduce Crime? 05/03/2016
Basic Income as a Policy Lever: Can UBI Reduce Crime? 06/13/2019 What would the effect of a universal basic income be on crime? A new study looks into Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend and suggests that it reduced property crimes. (Research on this is limited; however, there are experiments going on now so more will be available soon.)
How much does Income Inequality Affects Crime Rates?;
Geneva adopts what's believed to be the highest minimum wage in the world, at $25 an hour 10/04/2020
4. Reducing homelessness
I went into research showing how to reduce homelessness and treat drug addiction previously in Machiavellian Ideology Ignores Real Science
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need 07/13/2020
'It's a miracle': Helsinki's radical solution to homelessness 06/03/2019;
The city with no homeless on its streets 01/31/2019;
Wikipedia Homelessness in Finland,
Researchers gave thousands of dollars to homeless people. The results defied stereotypes. 10/09/2020
Jonathan Kozol "Rachel and Her Children" 1987
5. Treating drug addiction instead of criminalizing it
Complete article
Want to Win the War on Drugs? Portugal Might Have the Answer 08/01/2018, indicates that we might be able to cut our fatal overdoses by as much as 98% as indicated in the following excerpt:
In Shadow of Pandemic, U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Resurge to Record 07/15/2020
Drug decriminalisation in Portugal: setting the record straight. 05/21/2020,
Months after the city sweep, heroin camps now scattered across Kensington | Mike Newall 10/27/2017
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Learning from a Health and Human-Centered Approach 02/20/2019
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal Learning from a Health and Human-Centered Approach 02/20/2019
Portugal's Path to Breaking Drug Addiction Spring 2019 While the U.S. and Italy have struggled with addiction, Portugal has crafted one of the most effective set of drug programs in the world.
6. Gun Control
The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide and Suicide Deaths in the USA, 1991–2016: a Panel Study 03/28/2019 Universal background checks were associated with a 14.9% (95% CI, 5.2–23.6%) reduction in overall homicide rates, violent misdemeanor laws were associated with a 18.1% (95% CI, 8.1–27.1%) reduction in homicide, and “shall issue” laws were associated with a 9.0% (95% CI, 1.1–17.4%) increase in homicide. These laws were significantly associated only with firearm-related homicide rates, not non-firearm-related homicide rates. None of the other laws examined were consistently related to overall homicide or suicide rates.
Mother Jones: A Guide to Mass Shootings in America
Mother Jones: 10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down
Mother Jones: More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence?
Mother Jones: At Least 194 Children Have Been Shot to Death Since Newtown
Mother Jones: More Than Half of Americans Now Have Tougher Gun Laws
STUDY: States With Loose Gun Laws Have Higher Rates Of Gun Violence
20 Deadliest Gun States
Less Guns, Less Crime- Debunking the Self-Defense Myth
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
How does gambling and gun control impact violent crime?
7. Don't train people to solve problems with violence, while ignoring non-violent methods. There's very little research on this subject; however, I cited a few good articles from the New York Times, Dave Philipps and David Swanson, as well as additional research of my own which searched for many more veteran shootings than the New York Times cited. There's also a lot of propaganda by supporters of the military including a seriously flawed article by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, which I reviewed in one of my articles, trying to dispute claims about a problem with many veterans. Clearly the most common target for veteran murders are other veterans or their own family, and they're often the people most likely to recognize and try to solve the problem.
Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles
Casualties of War, Part I: The hell of war comes home 07/24/2009 by Dave Philipps This article has been removed or put behind a paywall so most people can't access it and may not know where to look for it. Retrieved through the Wayback Machine.
U.S. Mass Shooters Are Disproportionately Veterans 11/14/2017
Updated Data: Mass Shooters Still Disproportionately Veterans 06/14/2019
Wash. Post: Sharp Rise in Violent Crimes Cited Among Returning Iraq Veterans in Colo. Unit. They probably didn’t explore all the data that was available to them at the time but there is more to indicate that veterans might be more predisposed to violent crime than non-veterans outside of inner cities where crime is at its highest.
Military-Trained Gang Members Worry FBI, Oklahoma Law Enforcement. 02/16/2012
Recruitment of felons, with waivers, being up in U.S. Army and Marine Corps 04/22/2008
Wikipedia: "FBI gang investigator Jennifer Simon 1-2% of the U.S. military belongs to gangs."
Can a Judge Order Someone to Join the Military or Go to Jail? updated 11/25/2019 article originally posted no later than August 2014 There have been numerous cases, including a teen who organized looting at Walmart and another teen who planned a school shooting but was caught and received counseling before he carried it out, where people charged with crimes have received waivers to join the military since the War on Terror became, and most of them aren't widely reported.
States with high murder rates have larger veteran populations;
Teach a soldier to kill and he just might;
Legitimate Violence Spillover (LVS) theory, Alexandra Lysova and Murray A. Straus 2013-4?
Veteran Murders Continue Under MSM Radar
Is the militarization of the police leading to escalation of violence including Vegas shooting?
Veteran Murders Brings Wars Based on Lies Home!
Military Indoctrination Endangers Veterans and Public for Wars Based on Lies
8. Organized gambling connection to higher rates of crime or violence, including murder.
Studies: Casinos bring jobs, but also crime, bankruptcy, and even suicide 10/30/2012
No Casino Surrey opposition to gambling including studies on local problems with crime
Man Tied to Murders at Detroit Barber Shop, Gambling Den Charged With Assault
National Gambling Studies
Casino gambling causes crime - Institute of Government and Public Affairs PDF
Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation
Poverty and Casino Gambling in Buffalo - Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation PDF
Gambling addiction leads many down criminal road
XI. Gambling and Crime
Casinos blamed for rise in crime by gamblers
The tragedy of gambling politics in United States
E! Investigates Curse of the Lottery Part 1 of 3 12/0/2013
E! Investigates Curse of the Lottery transcripts
The curse of winning the lottery and becoming a millionaire
Biggest Loser? Gambler Dropped $127M in a Year
Google "Curse of the Lottery"
How Gambling Influences Politics and the Economy
National Gambling Studies
9. Insurance fraud including enormous number of people killed for life insurance money. There's practically no good research from traditional institutions on this; however, I compiled large lists of many murders for insurance, including a lot that successfully collected and did my own simple study which can be easily confirmed. The most extensive of these cases were years old; however, I did another brief search recently showing that there's many more every year, although this search wasn't nearly as extensive as ones I did in the past.
Insurance Executives Profit By Inciting Murder Occasionally Paying Killers
Killing Kids For Insurance Is Semi-Routine
Life Insurance and media companies are encouraging lots of murders
For profit insurance has an incentive to betray people after disasters!
For-Profit Insurance is Government Authorized Crime Syndicate
Cops Killing And Arson For Insurance Routine?
Murdered woman's life insurer doesn't want husband to get money despite no charges in case 03/11/2020
Delhi Businessman Got Himself Murdered For Insurance Money: Cops 06/15/2020
Man murders nephew, fakes own death for insurance money 05/11/2020
Oregon Romance Novelist Allegedly Killed Husband for $1M Insurance Policy: Prosecutors 04/29/2020
Widow of Lane released from prison 03/03/2009 Prosecutors at her sentencing described Deidra Lane as an abusive woman who killed her husband for insurance money. Defense attorneys called her a battered wife who killed in self defense.
Susan Cox Powell’s Children Gave Clues About Where Her Body Could Be 11/06/2020 According to My Northwest, Cawley believes the murder was planned years in advance when Josh took out a million-dollar life insurance policy on Susan.
Lawyer Plots Husband’s Murder With His Boyfriend For Insurance Cash 08/20/2020
Father, 60, who murdered his son for a $700k insurance policy is found guilty of killing his wife to pocket a $200K insurance payout - and he was only caught when his second wife grew suspicious after he took out $1.2 million policy 02/04/2020
Woman Hires Daughter's Boyfriend To Bludgeon Family Friend To Death With A Crowbar 09/20/2020
Life in prison: Joel Guy Jr. convicted of brutal 2016 murders, dismemberment of parents 10/13/2020 The five-page plan, found in a backpack in the bedroom where Guy stayed during his holiday visit, also detailed how he planned to profit from his parents' life insurance policies.
Woman's Dismembered Remains Were Found in Park — and Suspects Allegedly Killed Her in Insurance Scam 11/05/2020
Wife of slain Cleveland firefighter bought his murder, then left his ashes behind, prosecutor says 01/11/2019 Curry-Walker gave Padgett some of the money, and he distributed it among Hein and Dorty, Thomas said. But Curry-Walker said she would have the rest of the money once the insurance payout came, Thomas said. She never paid the full amount, Thomas said.
Murder for Life Insurance Money: Protecting the Children 2017
Gretna woman killed man for insurance money, New Orleans prosecutors say 02/20/2020
Texas ‘Black Widow’ Linked To Multiple Murders After Gunning Down Boyfriend For $250K Life Insurance 06/24/2020 They told police that in March 1995, the former couple survived a devastating house fire and received an almost $16,000 insurance payout, which is when their marriage really started to fall apart.
Everything we know about 'Welcome to Sweetie Pie's' star accused in murder-for-hire plot 08/21/2020 In the days after the murder, Ellis deposited over $9,000 in cash into various bank accounts. On March 18, 2016, Norman contacted the life insurance company to try to collect on the life insurance policy he had obtained on his nephew. ..... On Aug. 20, the grand jury also charged Norman and his insurance agent Waiel Rebhi Yaghnam, 42, of St. Louis, with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.
A paramedic allegedly killed his wife for the insurance payout. The method? Eye drops. 12/23/2019 Hunsucker received $250,000 in life insurance payments from two policies after his wife’s death, according to the Star.
A look back at a fifty cent murder-for-hire in Camden 08/07/2020 It was on August 7th, 1939 that 18-year-old Wanda Dworecki was murdered near Camden High School. She had been beaten, strangled, and her head bashed in with a rock. The murder took a more scandalous turn when it was determined that Wanda’s father, a Baptist preacher, had paid to have her killed so he could collect insurance money, about $2600. He paid her killer 50 cents.
Mom Enlisted Son to Murder Husband, Daughter for Insurance Money: Prosecutors 02/27/2020 After her husband was killed, Morgan allegedly collected a $200,000 life-insurance policy and moved to Florida with her son.
Tara Carter murder: Woman ordered daughter's boyfriend to kill tenant with crowbar to get insurance money 09/22/2020
Woman, kin kill abusive husband for insurance 06/23/2020
Two Barberton sisters allegedly kill their own mother for R80K life insurance payout 01/30/2020
New Orleans man's murder shows the danger of becoming a witness 09/25/2020 Cornelius Garrison, 54, had been secretly meeting with the FBI for months in the massive fraud case involving intentional truck accidents staged for insurance fraud. After he was indicted with eight others on Friday, he lasted four days before he was murdered. Some defendants have already admitted working with attorneys to sideswipe 18-wheelers in order to file bogus lawsuits, driving up insurance rates for all drivers in the state. The long-standing and widespread scam costs each Louisiana driver $600 year in extra premiums, state Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
It's complicated: The wife, the hitman, the insurance money and the love triangle 08/25/2020
Husband gets life insurance money from the wife he killed 01/17/2020 A schizophrenic man charged with the first-degree murder of his wife, then found not responsible because of his mental health issues, will receive 100% of the dead woman’s life insurance money. The dollar amount of that policy has not been reported.
Money the motive behind ex-wife’s 2010 plot to kill retired NBA player Lorenzen Wright: report 09/19/2020 According to the report, Wright-Robinson, who married Wright during his stint with the Los Angeles Clippers, had claimed the $1 million check from the insurance policy after his July 2010 murder. The killing came months after the two divorced.
Murdered Vancouver gangster’s family denied insurance payout 02/12/2020 But in court documents, the RBC says the policy is void because Jodh Manj falsely claimed not to have any criminal convictions when he applied for the insurance policy 11 years ago.
Murdered woman's sons, not her killer, will finally get insurance money 12/31/2018
Howland woman’s execution for murder of husband delayed during appeals proceedings 06/25/2020
10. Union busting contributing to violence. Most of the research on union busting may not directly relate to crime or violence, but some does, and even when it's not directly related, if it increases poverty and income inequality it will indirectly relate to crime and violence.
Union Busting adds to corrupt bureaucracy and incites crime
Union Busting Tactics includes Union busting book
Union Busting Tactics New Location
Union Busting Playbook
Strikebreaking and Intimidation
Labor Wars in the U.S.
Wikipedia: Anti-union violence in the United States
Wikipedia: History of union busting in the United States
Wikipedia: Union violence
The Right-Wing Violence Trump Has Encouraged Has Deep Roots in American History 11/03/2020
Why Did Labor Leaders Vote Against Medicare for All in the Middle of a Pandemic? 07/29/2020
David Sirota "Hostile Takeover" 2006
America’s most insidious union-buster? Its own government 06/29/2018
Labor hits union busting by immigration agency 10/29/2009
Reading: Union Buster Tells All 01/13/1994
Workers Accuse Kickstarter of Union-Busting in Federal Complaint 09/18/2019
These are a few other general articles of mine about preventing violence.
Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit
Politics, not technology, caused botched executions;
Wal-Mart crime: Rolling Back Safety more than prices?;
Democrats do a bad job on crime; Republicans and the Media are worse
No comments:
Post a Comment