“The Urban Institute, a research organization based in Washington, has released an interesting report that suggests that the proliferation of iPods helps account for the nationwide rise in violent crime in 2005 and 2006,” Sewell Chan blogs for The New York Times. “The report suggests that ‘the rise in violent offending and the explosion in the sales of iPods and other portable media devices is more than coincidental,’ and asks, rather provocatively, ‘Is There an iCrime Wave?'”
Chan reports, “The report notes that nationally, violent crime fell every year from 1993 to 2004, before rising in 2005 and 2006, just as ‘America’s streets filled with millions of people visibly wearing, and being distracted by, expensive electronic gear.'”
Chan reports, “Of course, as any social scientist will tell you, correlation and causation are not the same thing. The report’s authors, John Roman and Aaron Chalfin, acknowledge in the report that ‘rigorous empirical tests’ of any theory for the two-year-old rise in violent crime ‘are not possible.'”
Chan reports, “But they offer three tantalizing observations… [along with] four reasons iPod owners might be particularly susceptible to crime.”
Full article here.
The “Is There an iCrime Wave?” report itself (pdf) is here.
MacDailyNews Take: Rather than blaming an inanimate object, we blame the criminals’ parents (or lack thereof).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “qka” for the heads up.]
Hey Mac Daily,
How come you are including parents as part of the blame for an increase in crime but when it comes to education and low test scores You blame the schools?
I believe that the increase in crime on U.S. Americans is because some people don’t have iPods, like such as in the Iraq and everywhere like…such as.
Hey, where’s MDN’s crowing of Apple closing at an all time high yesterday? Is it not an all time high?
The real problem? Not enough fiber.
Don’t these assholes have anything better to do with their time?
You take God out of the U.S. schools and this is what you get.
“Thou shalt not steal” used to be on every classroom’s wall.
It’s too bad the U.S. has become so secular and ignores its solid Judeo-Christian history along with it’s founders’ intent.
You reap what you sow.
“No one is blaming an inanimate object. They’re saying that the existence of the object induces robbers to commit more crimes. Get it straight.”
We ARE “getting it straight JIM….
there’s no INDUCING. People make choices. iPods don’t make those choices for people. THey don’t hypnotize people, they are whispering in their ears ‘rob people, rob people’.
“How come you are including parents as part of the blame for an increase in crime but when it comes to education and low test scores You blame the schools?”
Let’s see proof that MDN blames schools for lack of education.
“The real problem? Not enough fiber.”
No, I think the real problem is not enough cowbell.
Moo said: “No, I think the real problem is not enough cowbell.”
HaHaHaHa good one!
Got “More Cowbell” pinned to the wall at work.
That is one of the most illogical statements I’ve ever heard, but is sadly typical of the media today for whom FUD is their stock and trade now. Crime is up because there are more things to steal??!? Any twit with half a brain can see that’s not a causal relationship!
How about reporting that all other types of crime are at a 30 year low, and that this is just a 5 year spike?
Anyone want to correlate the lowering of crime rate with the rise in the abortion rate (in the US)? Perfect trailing (~15 years) indicator. The efforts of the Radical-right Pro-Life movement is already showing up in an increased crime rate (in the US). Still, I suspect the blatant display of iPods, and the distraction they produce, just might have some effect – like wearing your wallet half-way in your shirt pocket.
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Dave
“It should be fairly obvious that it is the HEAT that is causing the rise in crime.
All the iPods did was cause global warming…..”
no global warming is due to the decrease in the pirate population….
DLMeyer,
So killing healthy unborn babies for convenience is not a crime because it helps to minimize crime later on?
You fucking Liberal baby killers take the cake for illogical statements.
If you spent a quarter of the time on developing proper solutions for unplanned children than you spend defending the “right” of their mother to murder them, your crime rate would be even less.
Why can’t you see that sucking a developing baby out of the womb with a vacuum cleaner is hideous murder?
Answer: because you don’t want to face the fact that you condone sucking developing babies out of wombs with vacuum cleaners.
people hurt people. not ipods.
Self preservation is a law of nature. If an ipod makes you less aware of your surroundings, accept some personal responsibility. Same as the ‘watch the gap’ campaign for trains in NY. I see awkward, clumsy, not paying attention whatsoever, often drunk on weekends, teen girls on the train, who can’t even find a seat without bumping into their friends, yet a few unfortunate deaths makes ‘the gap’ responsible. It seems if an old, fat, ugly, flat-chested russian woman gets hurt, no one cares, yet let it happen to a hot blonde and see the outcry. Why? Sometimes the public chooses to absolve people of responsibility, and instead blame other factors, like crime, depending on who that person is. The reality is, crime is due to part criminal behavior and part susceptible victim. Like an accident, anyone can be involved in one, but certain people are more prone to. If we all stay aware, we will all be generally safer.
@ Jim: Some (certainly not me) would also argue that if a woman dresses provocativley, that she’s just asking to be sexually assaulted. I don’t buy any sort of “blame the victim.” A criminal chooses to commit the crime, not the victim.
Moo: “No, I think the real problem is not enough cowbell.”
But aren’t cowbells just another way The Man keeps “your kind” down?
Technically, we should all be able to walk down the street dripping diamonds, platinum, and gold.
We own it. Nobody has the right to take it.
The secularization of the U.S. does have far-reaching consequences.
“…the explosion in the sales of iPods and other portable media devices is more than coincidental,’ …'” And yet coincidence is exactly what you have. Correlating data and making assumptions based on those correlations is not exactly high science, well actually it is, but – here’s the point, it takes years of repeated outcomes to even begin to say, with any degree of accuracy, that two desparate studies actually show demonstrative interactivity, especially social studies of any kind.
But you gotta love it anyway. Remember they did this with Nike because in the real world some people did in fact get shot and/or stabbed so that the robber could have the expensive shoes the victim was wearing. Of course I could probably incure the same treatment if I were to walk into the same violent area waving a $100 dollar bill too – And of course there was the little problem that during this period of time crime was actually going down – so… What?
One way or the other we’re going to demonize what’s popular in every generation: gadgets, music, art in general, blah blah blah. It’s not all bad because we should think about how loud we’re listening to our iPods, and how flagrantly we wave them around while walking down the street, or whether we can hear on-coming traffic or not, but the tone of all of these leaps to conclusions are that somehow this thing is single handedly responsible for the demise of western, eastern, northern and southern culture, and to that, or anything that implies that my personal responsbilities to myself and my fellow persons is not in my control is bunk. Be educated, be smart, assume repsonsibility for yourself and others, and throw crap like this where it belongs. — flush…
“THey don’t hypnotize people, they are whispering in their ears ‘rob people, rob people’.”
Maybe the content is partly to blame.
Have you listened to rap? (I won’t call it music.)
And it’s not whispering but screaming messages of violence to a mind-numbing beat.
@woody: your a real idealist buddy. Wake up, anywhere you go, there are certain parts of the city, and certain parts of the country, heck even certain little local bars, where your asking for trouble if you walk in there simply minding your own business, because you’re a stranger, or the wrong race, ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, gender, you name it. Should you get hurt, No! But you’d be a fool to act like crime only happens to someone else. Is it worth a beatdown? Not to me. So I stay aware, stay out of certain areas, and stay away from certain people. That’s great advice for anywhere in this world my friend.
maclover,
It’s simple: I avoid people based on skin tone.
The darker they are, the more I avoid.
It works quite well.
“The darker they are, the more I avoid.”
Seal is after you.
HMMM…Let’s see. A nation of people self consumed, spoiled & with too much time on their hands…Few two parent households. Right & wrong thrown out the window years ago…Violent entertainment spoon fed to kids daily…Parents letting TV raise the rug rats…Glorification of wealth and fame. Yeeaaahhh…I blame the iPod too.