This TechCentralStation column is very good (thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer). I’m not sure I’d endorse everything it says — for instance, I’m not sure whether federal crime-fighting programs, as opposed to state and local ones, are likely to be particularly effective. But I think it makes some excellent points.
Poverty, people say, causes crime; but what many people miss is that crime causes poverty. Crime disproportionately victimizes the poor, and it keeps them poor, partly by diminishing their assets (or making them invest their scarce money in anti-crime measaures) but chiefly by keeping their neighborhoods poor. If you want to help the poor, work to reduce crime — which in large part (though not entirely) means arrest, prosecute, incapacitate, and thus deter criminals.
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