From: terry@prcrs.prc.com (Terry Cunningham)
Newsgroups: dc.general
Subject: Re: more on crime here
Date: 5 Oct 92 15:20:00 GMT
Distribution: dc
Organization: PRC Realty Systems, McLean, VA

In article <1992Oct3.192503.26509@access.digex.com>, dougnews@access.digex.com (Doug Humphrey) writes:
> In article <4865@prcrs.prc.com> terry@prcrs.prc.com (Terry Cunningham) writes:
> >
> >Perhaps a simpler explanation would be that the increasing poulation size
> >and density due to immigration results in a corresponding increase in
> >the amount of everything (sewerage, housing needs, unemployment) including
> >crime, until the capacity of the host country has expanded to the point
> >where this influx is absorbed.
> 
> Just because it is a simpler explaination does not make it better
> or more valid.  There are often complex interactions between 
> social groups.

I didn't say it was better, and I didn't disaggree totally with the premise.

> The increased population is a different factor, and a valid one,
> but the differences in cultures are a factor in much crime in this
> situation.  The tension between different belief systems (sometimes 
> expressed in religions, sometimes in cultural traditions) and 
> different cultural points of views are signifigant, and should
> not be discounted.

I do not discount them, I just am not aware of specific studies showing
that the crime levels during the immigration era were mostly due to
conflicts beteen cultures rather than general crime.  In other words, were
Italians only stealing from Germans or more settled Americans, or did they
mostlty steal from themselves? (I am only hypothesizing, and NOT picking on
Italians)

> >The crime, as I recall reading about it, was not so much the clash of
> >cultures, as it was the the standard larceny found in any large urban area.
> >More people, more crime.   In other words, did New York in the twenties, a
> >major period of immigration, experience any more crime than London, a city
> >of comparable size but with a mostly indegenous population.
> 
> I have to disagree with you.  Much of the crime was related to the
> clash of cultures, inspired by the criminal elements of one social
> group seeing the other social group as more "acceptable" targets for 
> their crime than their own social group.  It does not always happen 

Can you offer something to back this up?   Most organized criminal groups
(mafia, tongs, korean gangs, jewish gangs, etc...) preyed within very
tightly drawn boundaries within their own communities.  There were some
clashes at the perimeters but I doubt that this comprised a large percentage of
the OVERALL crime figures.  A gangland shootout will generate headlines, but 
10 picked pockets, 20 drunk and disorderly, 10 prostituion, 5 bar fights, 
2 robbery, and 3 rape charges in the same day and in the same community 
probably would not. 

> this way (example of Black on Black crime in the District perhaps)
> but NY and Boston as examples of the Italian and Irish experiences
> show clearly the culture clash.

One thing that immigration did introduce was one of the last vestiges of 
euro fuedalism: the mafia and other organizations already established in the
old country that allowed for the establishment of organized criminal
structures here.

Terry

-- 
 | Terry Cunningham terry@rsi.prc.com | "Thphey,  ithn't that a theerthucker |
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