This is a spinoff question from some issues raised on other threads. I often hear the comment that the people who commit crimes in America do so because they have no other way of making money. And also, that the reason people do poorly in school or on IQ tests is because they lack enough money. True? False? Why?
I don't think it's such a straight-forward, black-and-white problem. There may be several causes of crime and poor academic performance, and these problems may work together intricately.
i tend to think that it is because crimes present the fastest, easiest way to make money, and the perpetrators tend to think that this automatically equates to "the best way". there are direct correlations on schools not recieving enough funding, translating to poor test scores..im not sure about the iq thing though. i doubt it.
its a problem caused by americanisation. the american dream which is forced onto its own people and exported to the rest of the world is to get rich. for a poor person living in squalor, that means taking $20 from someone on the street. for a wealthy investment banker that means taking other people money, loaning it to someone else, then blackmailing them for a share of their earnings. for bill gates that means creating a near monopoly in which he can steal $200 from every copy of windows sold because he has conned peoeple into thinking they need it.
People have screwed each otherin the name of getting rich looooooong before there was a USA. It's part of human nature to want something for nothing, and if it's my something you want for nothing without my permission, it's in my nature to beat the shit out of you. Lack of self-discipline and an over-inflated ego are the two most common factors I've picked up in criminals, not income level or grades. Crime is idiocy, and idiocy knows no bounds.
People do poorly in school because they're dumb. People are poor because they're dumb. Obviously that needs some qualifying, which I'll leave to you folks.
Ok, so where are all the apologists for crime and stupidity I see in other threads, who believe that criminals and dummies are really just hapless victims of society???
Income level is a big factor in crime, but not the only one. It doesn't absolve an individual from responsibility for obeying the law, but there does tend to be a correlation.
Most IQ tests obviously have a certain level of bias against the children of dysfunctional families. You need parents who made sure you attended school and learned how to read well enough to take the test, and you need enough of a connection with the civilization around you to understand the context of the questions. Parents who don't provide these things tend to be poor, but the poverty isn't the cause of the failure. Street criminals tend to be stupid people who couldn't make a living any other way, but there are lots of intelligent people who execute more intelligent crimes and get a lot more money for their effort. There are many reasons people of any type turn to crime. Bad luck, bad upbringing, discrimination. Yet most people overcome those things and become responsible citizens, just as most stupid people and most poor people do.
Not to his defense, but I did a little digging. According to the census, white/white and black/black murder rates are about the same. However, according to the same stats, black on white murders are higher than white on black murders. Almost more than 2 times the number of murders (just check the bottom stats).
You completely misread those statistics. No surprise, nobody can read statistics correctly. Black people make up 12% of the population. If the murder rates were the same, then 12% of murderers and 12% of murder victims would be black. Instead, almost half of both groups are black. That means a black person is statistically four times as likely to be the perpetrator or the victim of a murder than a white person. The rates are most definitely not the same. Here the answer is different. 12% of white murder victims are killed by black people, so that's in line with the population. The average black person is no more or less likely to kill a white person than the average white person is. But more than 90% of black murder victims are killed by black people, eight times their proportion in the population. That means that the average black person is eight times more likely to murder a black person than the average white person is. Moreover, the since black people are only 12% of the population but almost half of murder victims, it means that black people are four times as likely to be murdered than white people. And white people commit a disproporionately low percentage of those crimes, white murderers actually select against black victims. There is ineed a murder epidemic, but it's strictly black-on-black murders. (I'm ignoring the "other" category, not enough data.)
It's not that I read them incorrectly. I assumed JR was asking for the rates. In my mind, that's percentage. But yes, it would have been better for me to analyze the stats. But, I wasn't really looking to do so... I was just answering a question. I'd leave the analysis to someone that really cares (You, James R, D'ster...).
I have a funny story that doesn't relate to what you are talking about, but its good: A mother and her baby walk into a jewelry store. The mother looks around for a little while being friendly with the owner, then she leaves. As she walks out the alram goes off. The guard searches her but can't seem to find anythig on her and he gets really confused. They are about to let her go when her baby starts pulling stuff out of the diaper, it turns out to be gold jewelry. I can't remember if she was labeled one of the smart criminals or the stupid ones.
