The academic world has been steadily improving research about how to reduce violence and solve many other social problems for decades, if not well over a century or many centuries, but this is almost never discussed in traditional media or the political establishment. I've written dozens of articles about this including some that discuss the most important contributing causes of violence and how to prevent them, this includes a series that started with
Ignored evidence linking corporal punishment, poverty and crime grows and ended with
Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit but there are many more either before this series or after it, some that are listed below. Most of what I wrote is based on the best research since the eighties, which is dramatically better than research from decades earlier, and it has continued to improve since then. But there were actually many good researchers long before that and even though the quality of the research they used to draw their conclusions isn't as good as it is today, we can recognize the best of these researchers since more recent research has confirmed their conclusions.
But why hasn't this good research been presented to the majority of the public decades ago if not a hundred and fifty years ago? There may not be a simple answer to that, but after looking through enough research and the history of how it was developed I suspect it's virtually guaranteed that ideology of wealthy people more concerned with rigging the economy in their favor is a major part of the reason. Explaining how I came to this conclusion might be easier after I review some of the leading causes of crime and violence and even how it's much more cost effective to solve problems before they escalate than to wait until it's too late.
One of the most important cause of escalating violence later in life starts with child rearing tactics and child abuse, including use of corporal punishment, which isn't necesarily directly related to economic ideologies, although it is indirectly related. There have been many statistical studies showing that parents that use corporal punishment on children are also more likely to escalate to more child abuse and teach more violence later in life. For example, the states that still allow corporal punishment in schools, on average, have always had higher murder rates than those that don't allow it, with the gap escalating since many states banned corporal punishment in schools in the early 1990s, with the highest gap in 2019 with average murder for states still allowing it at 6.07 per hundred thousand people, and only 4.22, on average, for states not allowing corporal punishment in schools. As I said, child abuse and corporal punishment may not be directly related to economic ideology, but it is indirectly related since it's often used to control people starting as children and prevents development of critical thinking skills, including challenging authority, and teaches violence later in life. This often escalates with military indoctrination teaching cadets to blindly obey orders even when fighting wars based on lies, although they pretend not to do this. Many of the other leading causes of escalating violence are more directly related to economic ideologies designed to rig the economy in favor of the rich.
Other risk factors or contributing causes that correlate with higher crime or violence include poverty, income inequality, lack of educational or economic opportunities, lack of access to health care, including mental health services, gambling, insurance, charter schools, and numerous other efforts to rig the economy. This is especially true when many of these factors are concentrated in abandoned inner cities, which often have murder rates that are twice as high as the national average, or a larger gap with the rest of the country, which is below average; and this gap is even larger if you compare it to other countries like European countries, excluding Russia and Ukraine, which have very dysfunctional governments. These countries with murder rates less than half ours, often as much as 90% lower than ours, have much less child abuse, ban corporal punishment in homes as well as schools, and do much more to reduce poverty, homelessness, drug use, and provide better education.
Yet this research is virtually never discussed in traditional media, nor is it used to make important political decisions, in fact our politicians routinely do the opposite.
Why?
After looking through a significant amount of history and research on the subject I've come to the conclusion that it's almost certainly mainly because of ideologies of the wealthy that control powerful institutions, including the media and political establishments, and that there's an enormous amount of evidence supporting this conclusion, although most people may not be aware of it, therefore they may consider this an opinion, at least until they look closer at the evidence. One of the most important sources is Niccolo Machiavelli who often said that the state should "keep the citizens poor" presumably to ensure the state can control them, and he also advised that the state should "be so prepared for war as always to be ready to make war" even though both in his time and ours all wars were fought based on lies controlled by the wealthy, with the poor fighting them and losing their lives for the benefit of the rich. We clearly continue to adopt this to this day, although it doesn't sound good to admit it and traditional media declines to discuss it.
Another important factor is that our government, political and media establishment have always tried to keep the majority relatively uneducated, although in more recent decades they've done a better job pretending not to. In some cases older quotes are more likely to speak out about intentionally keeping the poor ignorant, presumably because they were less likely to fear their quotes being used against them. This appears to include Voltaire and Adam Smith who both allegedly indicated they needed an uneducated work force to work the fields, and later the factories when they became more popular. One quote attributed to Voltaire is "it is not the laborer who ought to be educated, but the good little bourgeois, the inhabitant of cities..." and "We must cultivate our garden. Ignorance is essential for the masses. If they were to reason, we would have no laborers," although I can't find the original source. Frederick Douglass wrote about how when he was younger and a slave of Mr. and Mrs. Auld, Mrs. Auld began to teach him to read for religious reasons, initially without the knowledge of Mr. Auld. Then when Mr. Auld found out about this he got angry and told her not to do so since a common belief at that time is that if you educate slaves they would be harder to control. After this Douglass learned it was more important than ever to learn to read if he wanted to be free, and other sources show that it was illegal to teach slaves to read or to educate them.
John D. Rockefeller and Frederick Gates also indicated they only wanted enough education for working class people to enable them to do industrial jobs, but not education that encourages them to learn other subjects, especially if it leads to them defending workers rights. One quote often attributed to Rockefeller, "I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers," might not be something he said, some sources it was an interpretation of Gates writings, but it's an accurate description of both their views whether either of them actually said it or not. One of the most brazen and honest admissions that tyrants want to keep their citizens poor and uneducated was when someone suggested educating his work force and Anastasio Somoza García famously replied,
“I don’t want an educated population; I want oxen.” This is also cited in Penny Lernoux
"Cry of the People: United States Involvement in the Rise of Fascism, Torture, and Murder and the Persecution of the Catholic Church in Latin America" 1980 p.85
Bertrand Russell also came to similar conclusions, although he pointed this out to oppose it in the hopes he could change it when he wrote:
A “good American” is a man or woman imbued with the belief that America is the finest country on earth, and ought always to be enthusiastically supported in any quarrel. It is just possible that these propositions are true; if so, a rational man will have no quarrel with them. But if they are true, they ought to be taught everywhere, not only in America. It is a suspicious circumstance that such propositions are never believed outside the particular country which they glorify. Meanwhile the whole machinery of the State, in all the different countries, is turned on to making defenseless children believe absurd propositions the effect of which is to make them willing to die in defense of sinister interests under the impression that they are fighting for truth and right. This is only one of countless ways in which education is designed, not to give true knowledge, but to make the people pliable to the will of their masters. Without an elaborate system of deceit in the elementary schools it would be impossible to preserve the camouflage of democracy. Bertrand Russell Free Thought and Official Propaganda" 1922
Penny Lernoux also pointed out that Senator Hubert Humphrey admitted that he was using dependence on food to control people when he said:
I have heard .... that people may have become dependent on us for food. I know that was not supposed to be good news. To me that was good news, because before people can do anything they have got to eat. And if you are looking for a way to get people to lean on you to be dependent on you, in terms of their co-operation with you, it seems to me that food dependence would be terrific. ("Cry of the People" p.207)
This was apparently said early in his career, probably shortly before being elected to the Senate, and before he learned to be more careful about his words, since it doesn't sound good to come right out and say it this way. This was almost never reported by traditional media again, but lower profile sources that care about the working classes haven't forgotten.
More recent researchers that go into greater detail about how wealthy people try to prevent working class people from getting a good enough education to question a rigged economy include Diane Ravitch author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" and "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools" 2013, and Jonathan Kozol author of
"Savage Inequalities: Children in American's Schools" 1991 and many other good books on the subject.
One of the things that Jonathan Kozol wrote about in "Savage Inequalities" is
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) which virtually declares that poor people, especially minorities, don't have the same right to education as rich people, which ensures they never get the same economic opportunities. this decision was decided by the US Supreme Court and written by Lewis Powell in a five to four decision with a strong dissent by Thurgood Marshall. This was the same Justice that wrote the decision in
Ingraham v. Wright, (1977) which was also a five to four decision with another strong dissent by Thurgood Marshall. This was described by Philip Greven in
"Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse" 1991 who explains that the original Florida court appointed a Panel of only three Judges that would take a closer look at the case before making recommendations to the full court, and this Panel found there was extreme abuse, possibly that fits the definition of torture, although the court never phrased in that way, but they did describe it as "cruel and oppressive," and recommended they rule in favor of Ingraham; but both the Florida Supreme Court and US Supreme Court ignored the most abusive testimony and over-ruled those that were more familiar with the subject. Many people that have researched torture and how it's abused have found that supporters of torture have a long history of ignoring the best research and finding a way to downplay it by describing it as "Enhanced interrogation," "Moderate physical force" or in this case "Corporal punishment," but when you look at the definition of torture and how it's used in practice researchers often conclude this is a way of downplaying torture to make it seem acceptable, and regardless of what the supporters call it, the most extreme cases, including what was done to Ingraham and his classmates, clearly fits the definition of torture.
The same Lewis Powell that wrote both these decisions was also the author of what is known as
"The Powell Memo" which shows an incredibly strong bias in favor of business supporting efforts of the wealthy to rig the economy in their favor strongly opposing efforts to protect the environment or oppose wars supported by the rich, like Vietnam at that time, even though wars are obviously based on lies, and other biases in favor of the rich. It's hard to image how anyone could consider him impartial or a fair choice for the Supreme Court; however, since the political and legal establishments have always been heavily biased in favor of the rich they decided he was acceptable. However, these two outragious decisions, and more, show he's far more concerned with controlling the working class than defending their rights, and so are current member of the Supreme Court.
There is also plenty of research and evidence showing that the wealthy were more concerned with protecting their own wealth and power than with educating the public or learning about the leading causes of violence, both in the nineteenth century and more recently. In
The Jukes, a study in crime, pauperism, diseases, and heredity 1877 p.2 Richard Louis Dugdale writes:
I am informed that $28,000 was raised in two days to purchase a rare collection of antique jewelry and bronzes recently discovered in classic ground, forty feet below the debris. I do not hear of as many pence being offered to fathom the débris of our civilization, however rich the yield. I do not complain that men of wealth expend their means as they prefer, but it seems not captious that I should wish crime and pauperism were as rare as the exhumed treasures, that they might arouse equal zeal for deep research. There is, perhaps, yet hope, for these subjects have a claim to far greater antiquity inasmuch as they reach back to time immemorial, which assuredly antedates the bronzes.
More recently a similar incident happened when the
Notre-Dame fire happened and Emmanuel Macron requested donations to rebuild it and quickly raised over a billion Euros raised within a very short time with the vast majority of it raised within a day after the request. I asked Google AI if this has ever happened when it comes to research for studying how to prevent violence or reduce poverty, it indicated that it hasn't been close with the following reply:
After the Notre-Dame fire in 2019 Macron requested donations to rebuild and received over a billion Euros, mostly in the first day; has this much money ever been raised this fast to study the causes of violence or educate the poor or middle class? 06/17/2026
No, this much private money has never been raised this fast for those causes. Philanthropic campaigns for systemic social issues rely on long-term, multi-year initiatives rather than the instantaneous, billions-of-euros mega-pledges that are triggered globally by acute, high-visibility disasters like the Notre-Dame fire.
While causes like poverty or education receive massive funding over time, immediate concentrated wealth like Macron received for Notre-Dame is incredibly rare. The speed and size of the Notre-Dame pledges were unique for several reasons:
Trigger for the Wealthy: Disasters allow billionaires and massive corporations to write checks that generate immediate positive public relations. Within days of the fire, tycoons like Bernard Arnault (LVMH) and François-Henri Pinault pledged hundreds of millions individually.
No Bureaucratic Friction: The money was pledged globally overnight to a single, highly tangible, localized physical project. Studies of violence and poverty education require vetted non-profit intermediaries, systemic administrative overhauls, and long-term deployment of assets, rather than just rebuilding a physical structure.
Lack of Ongoing Crisis Funding: Even massive disaster-relief campaigns (such as for the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami or 2010 Haiti earthquake) take weeks to months to reach the $1 billion mark, whereas Notre-Dame achieved this in a day and a half.
Complete article
Dugdale's research was probably among the best in his time, and eventually was confirmed by much more modern research to support it, but before that it was misrepresented to support Eugenic, presumably because of ideologies of the wealthy in the early twentieth century. Dugdale was involved in the early debate about whether "heredity or environmental" causes of violence were more important, which is now almost always discussed as "nature verses nurture" and concluded that "environmental" or "nurture" factors were far more important, but, like all good researchers he admitted that heredity factors also played a part. He argued for solutions like reducing poverty, providing more economic opportunities and education and other effective solutions would help reduce crime. There was at least one case where he pointed out that a female suspect who was released was forced to return to an abusive family, and to avoid abuse, she requested the judge send her back to jail for protection, the result was that she received the help she needed and stayed out of trouble after getting away from those that may have been forcing her into crime. This shows in many cases helping people who need it is far more effective than punishing them. There was a fair amount of research in his time showing he was right, but not nearly as much as there is today.
However when his research first came out it wasn't widely accepted, especially by the wealthy, who presumably wouldn't have been interested in research advising against rigging of the economic system or educating the poor in a manner that would encourage them to defend their rights against oppressive working conditions. His research was distorted by Eugenics supporters, especially Arthur Howard Estabrook who wrote a revised version of his study concluding that it was mostly if not entirely heredity causing crime or violence and used it to support Eugenics views which supported forced sterilization among other perceived solutions that would never work, but it did suit the ideology beliefs of many wealthy people, and reduced discussion of ending a rigged economic system. Eugenics has since been widely discredited and is rightfully considered pseudo-science, with only a small number of racists or class-based bigots still supporting it like Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Thiel. Class-based bigotry, often called "classism" is much more common than the vast majority of the public realizes, possibly because it's adopted by the wealthy who also control the media; but it may be the worst form of bigotry and often combines with other forms of racism unnoticed as a result of subtle coverage by the media, and is virtually guaranteed to be a large reason why the best research about reducing crime or violence isn't widely reported in the media or used to make important political decisions.
Some ideologues often cite Marxism as a leading solution to preventing violence or crime, and Karl Marx has done some research into reducing income inequality or abuse of workers, which is a common contributing cause of violence, so Karl Marx has contributed something worthwhile; however, there are many other good researchers that have done far more to directly study crime prevention more effectively than Karl Marx, including Richard Dugdale, Clarence Darrow, Karl Menninger and many other more modern researchers I've reported on repeatedly like James Garbarino and Lisbeth Schorr. And in at least one case an unintentional research project was done that helps show how opression contributes to crime or violence, although it wasn't intended to do so, instead it was intended to be research into how to increase profits for the wealthy regardless of how much damage it did to the poor in South Africa in the first couple decades of the twentieth century as indicated in the following excerpts from "The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World," 1995 by Stefan Kanfer:
He would import Chinese workers. The low priced coolies would be locked into three-year pacts, instead of the familiar three-month contracts. As bizarre as this sounded, the Imperial Government in Peking announced its enthusiastic approval. White laborers were aghast. Furious demonstrations against the “yellow peril” took place on the streets and squares until Sir George Farrar, president of the Chamber, issued a reassuring statement. Asians would “only be brought in under government control, and only as unskilled laborers, prohibited to trade, prohibited to hold land or compete with any white man.” Yet an iron tone underlay his words. Sir George made it abundantly clear that nothing could dissuade him from bringing coolies to South Africa. Without them the mining industry would be crippled. It might even fold, along with thousands of positions for whites. P.168
… No one bothered to ask the Asians what they thought about the situation, but their feelings may easily be guessed. From the moment they stepped on foreign soil, coolies could feel the resentment seething from both black and white onlookers. Other than shouted orders, no communication took place between races, and the Chinese withdrew into their own sullen and insular society. They passed their time in the crowded compounds smoking opium, gambling, and fighting. Sometimes arguments erupted into violence and murder; sometimes the violence took place away from the compound, when coolies broke out and attempted to rob a local farmer. To the ruling powers, crime was a small price to pay for a revived mining industry. Milner’s plan went down in their diaries and bankbook as a success.
So it was until the repercussions began. ... p.169
The natives–two thirds of the population–would be relocated onto 22 million acres. To outsiders this seemed an enormous land grant; what it actually meant was that 65 percent of South African humanity was being forced onto 7 percent of the country. … After the law was passed the natives, taken from productive farms, would be left without any means of support. The government and the Randlords were counting on that; sooner or later blacks would have to turn to the mining fields, digging up gold and diamonds.
Originally Plaatje had trusted the liberal English speakers. Now he spoke out indignantly: “If anyone had told us at the beginning that a majority of members of the Union parliament was capable of passing a law … whose object is to prevent natives from ever rising above the position of servants to whites we would have regarded that person as a fit for the lunatic asylum.”
The act had swift and tragic consequences. Hardly any funds were provided for the adjustment period, and the native farm system totally collapsed. Poverty, with all its concomitants, took over. Infant mortality rose: every fifth child died in its first year. Crime became rampant. Blacks could neither go backward nor forward; their immemorial customs and common laws were shattered, yet their education was left to the ill-equipped missionary societies. Untrained, geographically limited, hampered by selective pass laws and taxes, the natives crowded back into the compounds. p.187-8
The fact that these experiments were initially considered "a success" by the business interests that carried out this experiment overwhelmingly shows they had no interest in the best interests of the majority of the public as long as the wealthy increases profits at their expense. In South Africa the leaders saw no reason to even hide their intentions until it backfired on them, not just the working class. Do you think modern members of the wealthy class are any better now, either in the United States or elsewhere? At best some of them do a better job hiding their true objectives, but if you watch closely a surprising number of them don't even do that.
In 1922 Clarence Darrow demonstrated he knew much more about the leading causes of crime and how to prevent it when he wrote
"Crime: Its Cause and Treatment" and once again, even though he didn't have as much academic work to support his conclusions at the time, and he may not have provided as many footnotes or sources as he could have, an enormous of research since then has shown most if not all of his conclusions were correct, but once again the wealthy people controlling large institutions including government, the media and the academic world continued to ignore this, and at that time they continued promoting Eugenics which should have been clearly discredited even then, but despite the political support it eventually was debunked and Darrow's views confirmed, even if the media didn't report this widely to the public. Once again he reports that reducing poverty will dramatically reduce crime, shows that punishment isn't as effective a deterrent as most people seem to believe, and that when extreme punishment, like hangings, torture, and other things we now consider outragious was reduced or eliminated crime went down, yet occasionally conservative people argue they should be brought back despite this evidence.
Darrow also debates the difference between heredity and environment, shortly after this almost all other researchers started calling this "nature verses nurture," which actually was first discussed in 1874 by Sir Francis Galton, but didn't become the dominant phrase until about the 1930s. Darrow mentioned back then that if we spent the money used to fight on one war after another based on lies on social problems instead we could solve our crime problems, and overwhelming evidence now shows he's right. Anti-War activists continue making this argument, but it never gets covered in mainstream media so only those following the right social media or alternative media will hear about this. He begins by acknowledging that his book will almost certainly be considered "a plea or an apology for the criminal" but goes on to explain that he's trying to understand why the criminal commits crime so it can be prevented; and it was true then as well as now that get tough on crime policies almost always only focus on crime committed by the poor, not the rich, who do far more damage with the types of crimes they commit, and ignore effective research showing how to prevent crime. get tough on crime is simply an appeal to vengeance, although most reasonable people agree that some punishment or jail is required, it should be more extreme than it has to be, especially when it applies much more to the poor that are forced into desperate situations than the wealthy, who get away with much more.
He also understood back then that criminals often began as troubled children and educating them earlier or preventing abuse to the child is far more helpful than punishing them and prevents them from becoming long term criminals when done rationally and successfully, which in most cases wasn't implemented on a reasonably large scale until decades later, and many reform schools for children made them worse not better, as more recent research shows, confirming Darrow's beliefs. Darrow recognized back in 1922 that crime rose following wars and cited recent newspapers to make his case; unfortunately he didn't cite a statistical study of those newspapers, assuming there was one, but other more recent studies, based mostly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported his conclusions and also claimed similar things happened after the Second world war and the Vietnam War. If this is true, which I don't doubt, studies could still be done based on older newspaper reports following various wars and comparing them to Newspapers after a longer period following the biggest wars.
Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck's research also provided more evidence showing that child rearing and economic opportunities were more important than nature or heredity in contributing to crime later in life, even though that wasn't what they intended to do. They began some of their research before World War II, but most of it came after World War II in the late forties and fifties. They conducted large statistical studies attempting to study the impact of body type and even eye color on crime among other things, with numerous other researchers providing peer review. At least one of their associates, and perhaps the Glueck's themselves came in to the study thinking that heredity would probably have a larger impact, but changed their conclusions after looking at the research. To the best of my knowledge they never supported Eugenics or intended to debunk it; but their research showed that "environmental factors and social conditions are far more powerful predictors of delinquency than inherent biological determinism," which effectively debunked Eugenics, along with other similar research from other academics, and confirmed both Dugdale's and Darrow's research and conclusions, although it still wasn't as thorough as more recent research which confirms it even more effectively.
About the same time the Glueck's were doing their research, or perhaps later, Karl Menninger also did some exceptional research including what he reported in
"The Crime of Punishment" 1966 which focuses more on solving problems before they escalate than seeking vengeance after a crime has been committed, when it's too late. Like many more modern academics he recognized that prevention of earlier social problems is far more effective at reducing crime than punishment after the fact, which had a lot more emotional appeal then and now, and routinely persuades politicians and the public to push policies that simply don't work as shown by scientific research. Early in his book he cites Ben Alexander, one of the first co-stars of Dragnet when he falsely claims “The Supreme Court says we can’t interrogate crooks any more. So what choice do we have?” Then he replies to his own question, “We shoot ‘em. On our show the viewers will see the crimes committed, so they know the guy’s guilty. That way, nobody gets upset when we shoot him." (p.9) there are several enormous problems with this conclusion as anyone paying attention to police activities knows, starting with the fact that police don't know who's guilty, unlike shows in Hollywood that control everything and give viewers false impressions.
He also reports on how a lawyer says “The defendant has ‘a constitution,’” (p.10) as if the purpose of the Constitution is to prevent criminals from being held accountable and that it's supposed to protect us all, not just criminals, in many cases, those falsely accused of crime. It obviously does victims no good to prosecute the wrong person which the Constitution and other police procedures are supposed to prevent even if they don't work all the time. Furthermore, if you want to protect victims rights in the most effective way possible it involves learning how to prevent them from becoming victims in the first place, which researchers like Karl Menninger, and more recently James Garbarino recognize. In addition to showing that in most cases suspected criminals have been the victims of other crimes long before becoming criminals, and this is often why they do become criminals or suspects. He demonstrates that by solving social problems before they escalate, including by preventing child abuse of future criminals or suspects, is far more effective than punishing them after the fact, and many other researchers, including James Garbarino and others doing statistical studies prove this is correct. Menninger goes on to write:
The law neglects all of us. The more fiercely, the more ruthlessly, the more inhumane the offender is treated–however legally–the more certain we are to have more victims. Of course victims should not be forgotten in the hubbub of capturing and dealing with the victimizers, but neither should the next victim be forgotten– the one who is going to get hurt next so long as the vicious cycle of evil for evil and vengeance for vengeance perpetuates the revolving-door principle of penal justice. (P.10)
Similar variations of this argument continue happening to this day and when people don't get emotional, angry and vengeful they might listen to good researchers and support effective solutions that are far more effective and even save money, as some studies I've cited before and will mention again below show. Menninger cites numerous examples where poor kids are sent to jail for long periods of time for petty theft, including one example where a 16 year old kid gets sentenced to ten years for stealing $10 worth of candy (p.23) and comes out of prison far more troubled than when he went in, which does much more to increase crime than prevent it, and continues to be way to common for poor people while the rich who commit much worse crimes are rarely held accountable. Another example of this is when he cites massive discrepancies in punishments that were obviously biased in favor of the rich when he writes:
One has only to glance .... Again, the crime of abducting an heiress carries a potential sentence of fourteen years, while that for the abduction of a child under fourteen years is only half as long. For administering a drug to a female with a view to carnal knowledge a maximum of two years is provided, but for damage to cattle you are liable to fourteen years’ imprisonment. For using unlawful oaths the maximum is seven years, but for keeping a child in a brothel it is a mere six months. Such sentences today strike us as fantastic; but they cannot have seemed fantastic to those who devised them. p.66-7
Presumably these extreme examples may no longer be in practice, but the system that rigs everything in favor of the rich and there's no doubt that white collar crimes are punished much more leniently than crimes committed by the poor, including wage theft, which is typically treated as a civil action, not criminal, while petty shoplifting is often redefined as "felonies" if it's a repeat offence, and large corporations are constantly lobbying, with some success to get tough on crimes committed by the poor while limiting punishment for crimes committed by the rich, often only considered civil cases. He also showed how the bail system was part of political patronage enabling private bail bondsmen to put their own profits ahead of the rights of suspects who aren't convicted of anything and explained that Ronald Goldfarb's book, "Ransom: a Critique of the American Bail System" goes into more detail. (p.37) Since this went to press there have been reforms, but mostly at the state level, and they often made things worse; now for profit private prisons are even worse, which Menninger wouldn't have been aware of.
Menninger cites at least one major reform project in Kansas that proved to be very successful at reducing crime or mental illness, and after a few years, saved a lot of money as well. (p.145-6) Since then, as I pointed out previously and will cite again below, many other programs addressing a variety of the causes have also proven to solve social problems, reduce crime, and in the long run save money as well, although at times they cost more to start up before the larger savings are made. Menninger also cites one case that goes back before the Civil War when William Seward, future Secretary of State for the Lincoln administration, defended an African American who had been driven mad by extreme abuse, and he lost the case, presumably because of prejudices of the time and faced political persecution for taking it in the first place; although it may have been won on appeal, but it's unlikely to have led to major changes in his time. (p.216-7) However, this does show some research or legal defenses from over 180 years ago that have been proven to be scientifically sound by much more recent research.
Menninger also reports on the Wickersham Report in 1922 and at least one other report making recommendations that eventually were proven to be far more effective than the practices of relying mostly on punishment, unfortunately they weren't implemented at the time and academics didn't realize how effective they would have been until decades later. (p.225-6) The same goes for a recommendation a few years earlier in 1919 by August Vollmer who "made a remarkable report entitled 'Policemen as Social Workers' to the International Association of Chiefs of Police." (p.270-1)
Clearly most of the research I've shown in this article is older, and as I repeatedly said, it's not as thorough as more recent research which confirms that these researcher would eventually proven to be right, and I covered more recent research in other articles. What this older research shows is the political and media establishment, and often large portions of the academic establishment as well, is often not interested in the best research, and there's often evidence showing it's for ideological reasons of the wealthy, like support for seriously flawed research on Eugenics which never should have been considered scientific, although most credible researchers acknowledge some genetic impact, but most of it involves improvement in child rearing tactics, education, economic opportunities for the poor and middle class and more programs the wealthy are opposed to, often because they're more interested in rigging the economy in their favor and controlling the masses. It's rare where politicians get caught specifically saying they want to prevent people from getting a good education or solve other social problems, but one exception is written by Howard Bruce Franklin in "Vietnam and Other American Fantasies" 2000 p.126-7:
Vice President Spiro Agnew (not yet indicted for his own criminal activities) was even more explicit. Speaking at an Iowa Republican fund-raising dinner in April 1970, Agnew argued that there was too high a percentage of black students in college and condemned “the violence emanating from Black student militancy.” Declaring that “college, at one time considered a privilege, is considered to be a right today,” he singled out open admissions as one of the main ways “by which unqualified students are being swept into college on the wave of the new socialism.”29
Later in 1970, Roger Freeman--a key educational adviser to Nixon then working for the reelection of California Governor Ronald Reagan--spelled out quite precisely what the conservative counterattack was aimed at preventing: "We are in danger of producing and educated proletariat. That's dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education. If not we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people." 30 The two most menacing institutional sources of the danger described by Freeman were obviously those two great public university systems charging no tuition: the University of California and the City University of New York. Governor Reagan was able to wipe out free tuition at the University of California in 1970, but that left CUNY to menace American society.
The vital task of crippling CUNY was to go on for six more years, outlasting the Nixon administration and falling to his appointed successor, Gerald Ford.31 Speaking to the National Press Club in late 1975, President Ford explicitly declared that he would withhold federal aid from New York City, which was then in a severe financial crisis, until it eliminated the self-indulgent luxury of open admissions and free tuition at City University. To be financially responsible, the president declared, New York must no longer be a city that “operates one of the largest universities in the world, free of tuition for any high school graduate, rich or poor, who wants to attend.”32
This isn't the only example where politicians openly said they oppose education, solving social problems and even allowing everyone to vote, but other examples are quickly forgotten by traditional media and allowed to go down the memory hole. Another good point, which doesn't require confirmation from a politician accidentally telling the truth was made by Randall Sheldon in "Controlling the Dangerous Classes" 2018 p.19:
Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated on a daily basis--sometimes for all to see--than in our system of justice. Because those who create laws and those who interpret laws are drawn largely from the wealthiest class, it comes as no surprise that those brought into the criminal justice system will be those drawn largely from the lowest social classes. On any given day, in courtrooms all over the country, we have essentially one class passing judgment on another class. Our system is fundamentally a system influenced by class (and race).
However, as I said there's much more research confirming these older researchers turned out to be right, so instead of reviewing it in detail I'll cite previous articles that already did this and provided sources including
Burying Solutions to Prevent Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso Shootings which includes an excerpt from "Lost Boys: Why our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them" By James Garbarino 1999 that describes a home visitor program for at risk parents which helps educate them about child rearing tactics or solve other social problems long before they escalate, as well as another article from Professor Garbarino after the Newtown shooting where he describes many of the contributing causes of violence and how to prevent them. I covered additional research showing that many programs to solve social problems before they escalate and save money at the same time in
We're Using Children For Research, Without Accepting The Benefits! which includes excerpts from Lisbeth Schorr's book "Within Our Reach" 1988 which reports on many more programs that save far more money than they cost and also reduces violence saving lives, which should be considered more important than the money.
In
Ten Ways To Reduce Violence, Backed Up By Research not only did I describe effective solutions and sources to show they work but there are more statistical studies by Robert Zagar who did dozens of studies on successful programs solving social problems and all saving more money than they cost with the vast majority saving at least six and often ten to fifteen dollars for every dollar spent on the program, the most successful one saved ninety-eight dollars for every dollar spent, although most don't save that much, and the one that had the smallest savings still saved more than it cost, perhaps three times as much as it costs. However, in all fairness these studies are of programs that are handled well by people that want them to work, so there has to be reasonable oversight. The reason I point this out is there have also been examples where politicians fund programs to benefit their political donors, not the public, including some pointed out by Jonathan Kozol in his book "Rachel and her Children" 1987, and obviously if the programs are scams they're not going to have positive results like those studied by Zagar Schorr and others. Another article I wrote
Must We Hate? Must We Beat Children? cites Charles Appelstein who educates teachers, social workers and other people dealing with at risk children about how to prevent social problems from escalating using research already mentioned and more from his book "No such thing As A Bad Kid" 1998. Each of these articles and more listed below provides good research and additional academic sources showing how to reduce violence and save money at the same time, not to mention saving lives which should be more important than the money saved, although so-called
fiscal conservatives seem to be more concerned with the money, or at least they pretend to; as I often say they claim we can't afford to spend money on programs that do work and save money while sparing no expense on police courts and prisons which don't work and is hardly fiscally conservative.
Protecting children from poverty helps end violence against children 01/30/2026
Ignoring Causes of Violence Threatens Democracy & Costs Lives
Burying violence prevention education, including Crumbly shooting, is routine!
Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media
Machiavellian "War On The Poor" increases crime and waste!
Evidence Is In; Corporal Punishment Should Be Banned!
Prevention of violence has to address all causes, not just Guns!
Narrow Study Ignores Best Research Threatens Constitutional Rights
Withholding solutions for mass shootings & all murders continues!
Marketing Failed Solutions To Shootings for Profit? Or Propaganda?
Epidemic of abandoned babies & possibly mothers
Is Push For Charter Schools Increasing Murder Rates?
Inciting School Shootings In Trump Country
Media Glorify Themselves While Still Refusing to Cover Causes of Violence!
Obama’s Opposition to Corporal Punishment Needs to be Finished by Grassroots
Understanding and Preventing Violence: Volume 1 1993
Sir Francis Galton "English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture" 1874
Karl Marx crime prevention 06/13/2026
Karl Marx and Marxist theory propose that the ultimate crime prevention strategy is the eradication of capitalism in favor of a classless society. Because Marxist criminology argues that crime is an inherent, structural byproduct of economic inequality, alienation, and competitive greed, preventing crime requires removing the root causes rather than just punishing the symptoms.
Core principles of Marxist crime prevention include:
Redistribution of Wealth: Because many working-class crimes (such as theft) are a rational response to poverty and deprivation, ensuring equitable access to resources eliminates the necessity for survival-based crime.
Dismantling Private Property: In a communist society, the concept of private ownership of the means of production is abolished, which eliminates the foundational motive for corporate exploitation, fraud, and property-based crimes.
Replacing Egoism with Cooperation: Transitioning away from a capitalist "dog-eat-dog" mentality prevents the hyper-individualism that drives people to break laws for personal gain.
Ending Selective Justice: Under the Marxist framework, the legal system primarily criminalizes the working class to protect the wealth of the bourgeoisie. True crime prevention requires a justice system that equally penalizes the harmful practices of corporations and the elite.
Ultimately, in the Marxist view, once class conflict is resolved, the state (and its mechanisms of police and prisons) becomes obsolete, and social harmony is naturally maintained through mutual cooperation.
Complete article
Do wealthy Machiavellian people try to keep the majority of the public poor and uneducated? 06/14/2026
Whether wealthy or politically powerful individuals intentionally suppress the education and wealth of the public is a subject of intense debate, with perspectives generally falling into two main camps.
1. The Manipulation and Control Argument
Many critics and social observers argue that the ultra-wealthy, particularly those who employ "Machiavellian" tactics (using deception, power, and self-interest to maintain dominance), inherently benefit from a less-educated and financially strained populace.
Easier to control: A population struggling to meet basic survival needs is often less focused on systemic political change.
Vulnerability to manipulation: Uneducated or less critically minded populaces are generally more susceptible to propaganda, making them easier to influence during elections.
Labor supply: A large underclass ensures a steady supply of cheap, compliant labor, which drives corporate profits.
2. The Enlightened Self-Interest Argument
Conversely, economists and many scholars argue that in modern, knowledge-based economies, the upper class has very little incentive to actively keep the public poor and uneducated.
Necessity of an educated workforce: To maintain and grow complex businesses and technologies, corporations require a highly skilled and educated workforce.
Expanding the economy: The economy is not a fixed pie. Widespread education and higher living standards generally increase consumer spending and drive innovation, generating more wealth for everyone.
Social stability: An educated and prosperous middle class generally creates a safer, more stable society with lower crime rates, protecting the institutions and environments the wealthy enjoy.
The "Machiavellian" Angle
Niccolò Machiavelli himself advised rulers that they must maintain a clear, distinct relationship with the masses in order to stay in power. Historically, this meant balancing the opposing demands of the nobles and the people. However, even Machiavelli warned against extreme inequality. He posited that the wealthy should not become so powerful that they can ignore the will of the people, nor should the people become so destitute that they have nothing to lose, as this threatens the stability of the state.
Complete article
How America Keeps Its Citizens Uneducated 01/09/2024 Ashley Viola
Richard Hofstadter Anti-Intellectualism in American Life 1963
Horace Mann Thoughts from his writings 1867
Horace Mann Thoughts from his writings 1867
Frederick Gates The Country School of Tomorrow 1913
Do governments and the rich and powerful want to keep ordinary people poor and miserable? June 2020
Was Machiavelli teaching people to be unethical, or was he simply describing how rulers behaved in his time? May 2024
An Educated Population Is Essential to a Nation’s Prosperity - So what went wrong? 08/06/2022
Mandeville on the Education of the Poor 12/24/2011 The political philosopher and political economist Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) wrote in his work “The Fable of the Bees” that public education is harmful, because it increases the material demands of the poor, making the hierarchichal organization of society infinitely more dificult.
Bernard Mandeville “The Fable of the Bees” 1714
Bernard Mandeville “The Fable of the Bees” 1714
CMV: There's no good incentive for the 'upper class' to WANT an educated lower class 2022
How do billionaires convince the working poor education is a scam? 01/26/2025
Why the Poor Stay Poor — Machiavelli’s Dark Truth Revealed 07/25/2025
Why Rockefeller Designed Schools to Build Loyal Workers Not Creative Leaders or Thinkers 05/27/2025
Reading Machiavelli: Why conflict can be good and inequality is bad for everyone 08/14/2023
500 years ago, Machiavelli warned the public not to get complacent in the face of self‑interested charismatic figures 06/05/2024
(Video) Save the Children By President Gordon B. Hinckley Oct. 1994 In terms of physical abuse, I have never accepted the principle of “spare the rod and spoil the child.” I will be forever grateful for a father who never laid a hand in anger upon his children. Somehow he had the wonderful talent to let them know what was expected of them and to give them encouragement in achieving it. I am persuaded that violent fathers produce violent sons. I am satisfied that such punishment in most instances does more damage than good. Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear. Above all, they need example.
(Video) Children Don't Need Beating They Need Love and Encouragement 05/25/2023 Presumably from the Oct. 1994 speech
