Your question is a bit like asking if ice cream sales are linked to murder rates. It’s true that there is a link, but only because there are other things going on that affect both. There is no causation between the two. In other words, being conservative doesn’t automatically mean you do more crimes, and doing crimes doesn’t make you more conservative. There is a lingering variable here, which is poverty and income inequality. The parts of the US with the most poverty are linked with high crime rates because people do crimes when they are desperate. And people living in poverty are often poorly educated and can be susceptible to the appeal of conservative dogma, which is often about laying blame for poor economic outcomes, even if it’s mislaid.
My answer is only with regards to the US and I am not speaking to other places. In many countries there is an actual left-wing party which offers an appealing alternative for the working class. In the US, your options are the Republicans, who acknowledge you are poor and tell you it’s because of things like government overreach and minorities, or the Democrats, who will just pretend you don’t exist if you are poor unless you are also a minority.
You sidestep the fact that most conservative areas are poor and less educated because of decades of conservative policies. So, not exactly a correlation.
Rural areas have a higher violent crime rate per capita than urban areas, but that’s not quite the same thing.
Yeah, it’s funny when people from rural areas hop onto social media and start sharing their talking points about crimes in left-leaning cities…and then someone explains “per capita” to them.
Some urban areas will still have higher per capita rates than some rural areas, but it’s funny when people try to share raw numbers of crimes as if population didn’t matter.
What helps in reducing crime is social services that treat people as human beings. What doesn’t help is criminalising poverty or addiction. Which is exactly what the “conservative” states in the US are doing.
In terms of US states, yes. Mostly due to the overlap with impoverished areas.
Who could have ever foreseen that letting literally brain damaged people be in charge of other people might not end well? 🙄
when you normalize for population sizes, absolutely. this map from 2020 makes it pretty clear, yeah?
here’s the wikipedia page I ripped it from. it should provide a bit more explanation,I don’t think it does at this high level. Rural states still have high population centers of varying political and socioeconomic statuses. Tennessee and others have a crime problem along the Mississippi River iirc. There is just so much context lost in a state level generalization.
It does, when you correct it by population- that is to say “crime rate per 100k”.
Large population centers will have more crime simply for having more people (and therefore increased opportunity)
The data shows a clear indication that more conservative policies lead to more crime. It would be extremely difficult to parse that into per city. (And you would be right in that this data should only be taken broadly.)
Partly because a state level law simply has more force and influence than city-level ordinances- how extensive and even what a city can enforce generally depends on the state; further its difficult to imagine that a violent crime wouldn’t be covered in state law- meaning it’s the state policy that has the most effect. (For example, sentencing guidelines,)
Also, studies have found that- as far as elections impacting people’s lives goes- that the race with the greatest impact is actually the state AG. Because they set policy for what crimes take priority in prosecuting, and what sentencing they should be asking for, etc.
I think it’s too broad a question. How is conservative measured? State level? District? Past voting? Voter rolls?
I also imagine the type and level of crime matter. But there’s also what isn’t recorded.
Interesting question, though
I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to make a question like that more specific next time.
Don’t be sorry :) I’m sure different people would even argue about the definitions above. I lived in a super-left (comparatively and using US terms) neighborhood in a generally left city, in a generally left district in a state that mostly voted conservative. Depending upon the granularity (and definition of all the above terms), the results would play out rather differently. I’m a software engineer for a living so exercises a bit like this are something I do often
There’s some really good reporting on this specific to California:
https://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/homicide-and-gun-murder-rates
Takeaway: in the last 20 years, conservative areas have seen increased gun violence and murders and now lead the state.
I would consider re-framing a question like this to address what we even consider “crime”. we usually don’t factor in corporate crime and wage theft, both of which are incredibly damaging. or the crimes waged against the poor and the climate, which are harming all of us.
