"Why violent crime is so rare in Iceland"

Why violent crime is so rare in Iceland

Well this is an interesting Article with a twist......

It explains how Iceland has pretty lax gun laws yet gets very little crime.

But there is a catch........

Why can Iceland have guns with such little crime compared with the USA?


Well the author of the Article seems to think it’s down to economic conditions and the fact that Iceland has little problem with wealth divides and class problems.

So what are people’s thoughts? Seems guns are good as long as social tension are low, and a low Rich/poor divide seems to be key.
Is the huge class divide and economic woes the cause of the USA mass shootings and gun crime and not the guns themselves? Is this the real route of the problem?

Not that surprising, concidering the low amount of people who live in Iceland, so it seems logic that the money is divided more equaly, and I suppose they have a lot less unemployement problems.

reply to post by crazyewok


Violent crimes so rare in Iceland because nobody from Flint or Detroit has moved there yet...


2nd line.

reply to post by andy1972


Well, more aptly put, Iceland has an exceptionally homogeneous population and extremely strict immigration laws.

Surely not what the "politically correct" want to hear, though.

reply to post by crazyewok

....guns are good as long....

...as they are regulated....

Iceland has the same population density as Wyoming and North Dakota.

Economics are nice and all but even rich well-off people are at each others throats when they live 50,000 per square mile (Hoboken).

Space is what matters. The filthy rich and dirt poor get along perfectly fine when they arent living on top of one another like chickens on an industrial farm.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Because poverty causes crime. Period. Eliminate poverty and most of the crime will be solved.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Not gonna happen anytime soon, when most people worry about themselves and think sharing is a communist propaganda.

Fairly homogenous population, too.

They aren't diverse in Iceland.

reply to post by crazyewok


Citizens must be vested in society as a collective construct. There must be a belief that collective efforts of a society are net positive. If not, well, your nation's health is going down and to the right.

The US has a number of things working against it's sustainability.
1. A large and growing underclass. The underclass is pinned down with lack of education, security, lack of jobs, limited healthcare. Overtly dehumanizing police. Now they are hungry and homeless? They are told by authoritarians that they get what they deserve.
2. A hyper-violent police state and private for-profit prisons to execute the repression of the underclass. Authoritarians watch "cop dramas" very differently than the underclass. I assure you.
3. The collective positive efforts of good people are squandered on wars, corporate predation and cronyism.
4. The rule of law is impossibly corrupt and biased.
5. Fringe groups of radical authoritarians and wannabes intent on ripping the nation apart for fun and profit.

One day people wake up and realize they are prey for authoritarians and corporations and they always will be. Angry, nothing to loose, no reason to give a damn about anyone. Look at Greece. Society is in shambles. Capitalism is cannibalistic. Don't believe me, just open your eyes.

I'm sure I will piss off some self righteous Libertarian . Educate people for free, provide healthcare for free. Stop war fighting and bring back productive industry. Eliminate the Fed and fractional reserve banking. People are capable of much more than you have been taught by Faux News and idiot Koch shill web sites.

METACOMET
reply to post by andy1972

 

Well, more aptly put, Iceland has an exceptionally homogeneous population and extremely strict immigration laws.

Surely not what the "politically correct" want to hear, though.

edit on 12America/Chicago31am2013-12-03T11:53:37-06:00201312America/Chicago31 by METACOMET because: (no reason given)

This. Consider the demographics of Crime in the US vs crime in Iceland.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Remember the War on Poverty?

Want more of something, subsidize it. If the war on drugs is a big failure, so is the war on poverty. We've spent way more on it than the war on drugs and we only have way more poverty to show for it.

thisguyrighthere
Iceland has the same population density as Wyoming and North Dakota.

Economics are nice and all but even rich well-off people are at each others throats when they live 50,000 per square mile (Hoboken).

Space is what matters. The filthy rich and dirt poor get along perfectly fine when they arent living on top of one another like chickens on an industrial farm.

Also true. Take in population density and demographics, parts of the US that match Iceland have a similar crime rate.

reply to post by ketsuko


What does that suppose to mean?

There is no white on white crime? no black on black crime? no X on X crime?

I fail to see your underlying message.

nixie_nox
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

Because poverty causes crime. Period. Eliminate poverty and most of the crime will be solved.

You state that with absolute certainty while universities, criminologists and researchers have been uncertain for a century or more.

We can play "dueling studies" all day long with this if you wish.

Never mind the simple reality that poverty can never be eliminated. Even if we put ten people in a box and gave them each one million dollars some percentage of that ten will exist in a state of poverty.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Thing is there is "poverty" and then there is Poverty.

One you still have a roof over your head, food and healthcare to keep you alive. The other= Possible Death.

One is just life and like you said inevitable the other is something that should not exist in a civilised world.

nixie_nox
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

Because poverty causes crime. Period. Eliminate poverty and most of the crime will be solved.

Although one can consider poverty a factor, it is not the sole factor. Consider how much lower crime in general was during the great depression in the 1930's vs how it is today. Consider wealthy people who rape and murder and steal. Consider so many of the Kennedy clan. Consider so many wealthy athletes and celebrities who commit crimes.

reply to post by crazyewok


I'd agree in a civilized society poverty shouldn't exist.

However, relative to the thread topic, "Why is violent crime so rare in Iceland", I do not see how economic disparity would affect violent crime rates directly.

Sure, an argument can be made for property crimes. Still that correlation is relatively weak once factors other than financial means are brought into play.

Stealing a loaf of bread and raping a girl in the woods aren't really within same scope.

reply to post by luciddream


There is plenty of all of that, but we declared war on poverty with the Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and by all accounts, we have more of what we declared war on.

So, maybe we should stop subsidizing poverty. Clearly giving people endless handouts does not perform quite the function of lifting them out of poverty that it was thought it would.

But then, anyone who pays attention knows that you cannot fix a problem simply by throwing money at it. You have to have a viable plan in place to actually affect any real change. Welfare is money sans plan.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Im in the middle myself.

I can see how economic factors could affect crime BUT I think other factors like racial and cultural tensions as well as dense living conditions.

I think the Artical is on to something but only one of many factors.