| Crime is a function of several factors, in my opinion. These all tend to work together; the more of these factors you have acting all at once, the worse your crime situation is going to be.
1: Lack of deterrance. In the Western world, this is a biggie. Areas with liberalized gun-ownership laws have less crime, while areas with stricter laws in this regard have more. This is especially true when dealing with -violent- crimes. Sadly, the US, Switzerland, and Norway ( to a lesser extent ) are the only Western countries that really respect people's gun rights anymore, so this is becoming a major issue.
2: Lack of social controls: Even in ( publicly ) low-gun societies like Ireland, very tightly knit social controls can keep crime under control. Back in the 90s, for instance, there was a rash of instances in Ireland wherein car theives kept getting their legs broken. It went on for about 14 months before the Gardai were able to put a stop to it ( mostly by arresting thieves before they could be beaten ), and while it's been ten-ish years since then, everyone knows that stealing cars in Ireland could still be a VERY bad idea. In a society where everyone knows everyone else, it's difficult to get away with so much as stealing a candy-bar.
3: Poverty: This is a biggie just about everywhere. When people are poor, they steal more: either from boredom or because it's a quick way to make some cash. How to address this issue is somewhat contentious: while a well-thought-out "Welfare state" can partly alleviate the problem ( witness Norway or Sweden ) it is the economic equivalent of a bandaid for a cut artery, because the taxation required to support such a system merely transfers the monetary problems "up the chain." It also tends to cause a "brain drain" as the younger, tax-paying population leaves for countries where they get to keep more of their money. This is turning into a major problem in all of the Scandinavian countries as we speak. The Libertarian view is that heavily decreased or eliminated income-taxation, coupled with a return to gold-backed currency, would alleviate poverty by stabilizing the currency, preventing inflation, and increasing net income.
Now, as I said, the more each of these factors comes into play, the worse one's situation becomes. Take Switzerland, for instance: Widespread popular ownership of firearms, an extremely high standard of living, and a tightly-knit social and familial structure have combined to produce the lowest crime rate in the world by a hefty margin. On the other end of the spectrum is South Africa: a country with almost zero legal gun-ownership, an absolutely abyssmal rate of poverty, and few if any working social controls. South Africa leads the world in almost every catagory of violent crime, including murder: their murder-rate is almost 3x that of the US. |