about those declining homicide rates in the US ...

[iverglas]

Maybe nobody here has ever run into this kind of information. I mean, it's not the kind of thing likely to be posted at you'renotthebossofmefrommycolddeadhands.com ...

http://www.jems.com/article/news/advances-trauma-care-keep-dayt

Advances in Trauma Care Keep Dayton’s Homicide Rate Down
DOUG PAGE, Dayton Daily News | | Wednesday, April 27, 2011

DAYTON - The homicide rate in Dayton has dropped by almost 50 percent since the 1970s.

One of the reasons: more of those shot, stabbed or beaten survive because of advances in medical technology and trauma care.

"It would be fair to say gunshot wound victims, if they suffered the same injury 25 years earlier, their chances of survival would be much less," Dayton police Maj. Pat Welsh said. "It's a credit to the advances in medical technology and procedures, particularly 'The Valley.' "

... National studies seem to back up the veteran cop's take on the city's homicide rate.

"(T)he principal explanation of the downward trend ... involves parallel developments in medical technology and medical support services that have suppressed the homicide rate compared to what it would be had such progress not been made," according to the findings of "Murder and Medicine," a 2002 study led by University of Massachusetts Amherst sociologist Anthony R. Harris. ...

http://books.google.ca/books?id=XwAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=cache:hksOdpBgGngJ:www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2455809/posts+homicide+rate+trauma+treatment+guns&source=bl&ots=8gz_2aqXKb&sig=yP80LwaRLPwKpyMED8npq5IVY5c&hl=en&ei=xi8_TvuZIovogQeP--HoBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false (Popular Science Oct 2003, quoting from pp. 60-61)

Harris's statistics on the subject are staggering. He determined that without advances in emergency response and trauma care there would have been 45,000 to 70,000 homicides each year for the past five years instead of 15,000 to 20,000. Back in 1964, 17 percent of assaults were with a gun, and 16 percent of those were fatal. In 1999, ... 19 percent of assaults were with a gun, yet only 5 percent were fatal. ...

http://www.thefreeradical.ca/research/traumaCare.html

The ambulance-homicide theory
New York Times
By Ryan Lizza
December 15, 2002

For all the theoretical talk of ''broken windows'' and ''zero tolerance'' policing that has dominated the public discourse on crime during the past decade, research published this year suggests that the most significant factor in keeping the homicide rate down is something much more practical: faster ambulances and better care in the emergency room. ...

... In "Murder and Medicine," a paper published in May in the journal Homicide Studies, Harris and three other researchers determined that the murder rate is being artificially suppressed because thousands of potential homicide victims each year are now receiving swift medical attention and surviving. ...

Between 1960 and 1999, the proportion of criminal assaults ending in death -- what Harris calls ''the lethality rate'' -- dropped by 70 percent. (The steepest decline came in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when advances in battlefield surgery led to innovations in civilian emergency care.) ...

If he's right, the focus by criminologists on the stable or declining murder rate is actually masking a radical increase of violence in America, a fact that has unexpected consequences. For example, communities without access to the most advanced emergency medical services may have higher homicide rates. "How much is the black-offender rate inflated?" Harris asks. And there are strange implications for the criminal-justice system. An attempted murderer carrying out his crime in an area with poor emergency services is more likely to succeed than one operating near a high-tech trauma center. The former may be executed, while the latter spends just a few years in prison, their punishments determined not by any disparity in lethal intent, but by the unequal levels of local medical care.

Well. How about them apples? Lots of interesting food for thought there. Thoughts?

[TheWraith]

1. So you're complaining that we have better medical care today?

Or are you just trying to assert that the US is more violent now, even though violent crime rates have been plummeting for nearly two decades, right along with the homicide rate?

Spin fail.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ileus]

14. They're going to change the old saying to....guns wound people.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

40. If you didn't feel the need to violate the rules, and reply with personal insults...

You wouldn't get your posts deleted. Unfortunately, all you seem to have to respond is insults and accusations.

[iverglas]

44. okay, here we go

I'll just alert on the insulting lie you posted about me and see how that one goes.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

49. Does Canadian...

...grammar end declaratory statements with question marks? ;)

(A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.)

[iverglas]

54. I seem to have missed this

Apparently you meant to reply to post 1, immediately under my opening post.

It was, as you say, A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.

Funny how nobody seems to have got all hot under the collar about that one.

Funny, ha ha.

[SteveM]

51. LOL! nt

[Kennah]

3. If it were all that simple ...

... then I would still be at a loss to understand what doctor's forgot in the 80s, then remembered, then forgot in the 90s to an even greater extent, then remembered like they did back in the 70s.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/weapons.cfm

[iverglas]

4. if it were all that simple

then it wouldn't be what it is.

What it is, is identification of a factor in homicide rates. I don't think I read anywhere in that stuff I was reading that it was the only factor. Did you?

Let's not forget lead in the environment ...

[Kennah]

6. Sounds like the principal explanation being put forward

"(T)he principal explanation of the downward trend ... involves parallel developments in medical technology and medical support services that have suppressed the homicide rate compared to what it would be had such progress not been made"

[Kennah]

5. From the CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5002a1.htm

In the charts showing year to year data, which is only '93 through '98, both fatal and non-fatal firearm injuries are trending down. If the murder rate is artificially low because of advances in medicine, then the non-fatal injury rate should be artificially high, a lot higher.

[iverglas]

7. ah, just one small problem

Your figures are for firearms injury -- and I have very grave doubts about the completeness of the data set in any event.

Harris's study was of criminal assaults -- and not assaults by firearm only. That's your fixation, not his.

You did notice the thread is about the homicide rate, not about guns?

The relevance to this forum is multiple, of course. One obvious thing is the constant refrain that the homicide rate goes down as the number of firearms in which the US is awash goes up.

The homicide rate goes down as trauma expertise goes up -- among other things, certainly. But what Harris did was identify the effect of trauma expertise.

Sorry, no cigar.

[friendly_iconoclast]

16. The Arbiter addresses this in post #16. Aggravated assaults are down as well:

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html

[iverglas]

17. let's keep trying

Harris's study was of actual injuries treated in hospital.

Not charged/convicted offences.

[ileus]

8. Medical advancments have made firearms safer....special loads withstanding

[X_Digger]

9. If the homicide rate went down as the overall violent crime rate went up..

Then you'd have an interesting theory.

[iverglas]

21. see post 22

If you want to read the study to see exactly what the data represented, feel free.

As far as I can see, there is no suggestion that the "criminal assaults" behind the injuries in the cases examined necessarily resulted in charges or convictions.

One might even surmise that it is more likely that charges/convictions would occur in the case of homicide than in the case of non-lethal assault.

[X_Digger]

24. One might surmise..

that a shooting has to be reported to the police by ER departments, regardless of the outcome of the patient.

One might also surmise that an alive victim would tend to be more helpful in levying charges against a shooter than a dead one.

Keep reaching..

[iverglas]

25. you surmise interestingly

One might also surmise that an alive victim would tend to be more helpful in levying charges against a shooter than a dead one.

At that one I laugh -- and not just because it's a silly tautology.

Yes indeed, someone who suffered a gunshot in the course of a "dispute" -- the situation identified in a lot of homicides of any kind, e.g., and beyond a doubt the circumstances in which many criminal assaults involving gunshot wounds are suffered -- they're likely gonna be real helpful in having charges, uh, "levied".

[X_Digger]

28. And the point of that was?

ERs report gunshots to the police. Such reports make it to the graph I posted above.

Reeeeeeeeach a little further, you almost got it that time.




Well no, not really.

[iverglas]

31. if only your data set was relevant

The data in the study concerned criminal assaults. Not "violent crime". Specifically: aggravated assaults.

You could begin reading at this paragraph on page 137:

A more complicated set of issues concerns the use of
aggravated assaults as a historically unbiased measure of life-
threatening, criminally induced injury. Although used in this way
in a major, recent National Institute of Justice (NIJ) exploration of
homicides in eight cities from the mid-1980s to the early-1990s
(Lattimore et al., 1997), the shortcomings inherent in UCR aggra-
vated assault data are well known (see Abt Associates, 1984;
Biderman & Lynch, 1991; Blumstein, 2000; Maltz, 1999). These
shortcomings basically concern variation in citizens’ perceptions
and reporting of violent acts—especially among acquaintances,
friends, and intimates—as criminal assaults rather than as civil
problems, as well as substantial long-term and jurisdictional de
facto discretion in the police use of the aggravated assault cate-
gory to record known assaults ranging from criminal threats of
injury with weapons, to assaults producing very minor injuries,
to assaults producing potentially lethal trauma (Allen, 1986).

... and let us know your thoughts ...


It is not a 2+2=4 study and I have not read it all, nor do I expect to grasp it all immediately or ever if I do. But give it a shot.

[X_Digger]

35. Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch... nope.

While in the 80's-90's, aggravated assaults grew at a rate faster than homicide (which would tend to support Harris' conclusion), since about 1996, they've trended basically together.

Homicide:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

BJS:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/viortrdtab.cfm

FBI: Yes, you only get two years at a time..
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/aggravated_assault.html
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2003/toc03.pdf
...

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[petronius]

11. Aggravated assault rates have also declined over the past decade,

so Harris' contention that an overall increase in violence is being masked by the conversion of homicides into assaults is clearly not the case, even if it was (perhaps) reasonable a decade ago...

(Link for aggravated assault tables)

[iverglas]

18. see post 22

and do feel free to read the study if you want to refute it.

[petronius]

39. My comment was referring to the first sentence of the last paragraph you quoted

Perhaps that was Lizza's conclusion and not Harris' - I should have been more careful about assuming a reporter would accurately represent a research paper - but either way, that specific claim is not supported.

Post 22 is irrelevant to my comment, except that you appear to be confused about the data source yourself. Harris did not use hospital data, he used the UCR - which is what I linked to...

[iverglas]

45. do feel free to read the paper

and refute anything you think needs refuting.

Damn, you can just smell the desperation arouund here, can't ya?

[petronius]

47. I've already refuted the point in the OP that I immediately saw was wrong

And I've pointed out your error in post 22, as well as your mistake in thinking that post 22 had anything to do with my original comment. The only reek of desperation in this subthread is coming from you - it's a pathetic need to be disagreeable while avoiding the fact that you're in the wrong.

As for the paper, I've probably read (and understood) more of it than you have, although I do thank you for the link...

[krispos42]

12. Doubtless true. And doubtless as well that it applies to all first-world countries.

Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, etc.


It would also seem to apply for inflicted wounds from non-gun sources, such as fists, feet, knives, and clubs.

[iverglas]

19. doubtless

No one suggesting otherwise. In fact it was quite clear that the conclusion from the research applied to all criminal assaults, as I have said.

I'd doubt that better trauma care alone would account for the decline in spousal firearms homicides in Canada, though (by a ratio of 4:1 over 30 years).


("Over the past 30 years, the rate of spousal homicides against females has consistently been about three to four times higher than that for males")
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/part-partie4-eng.htm

[bluerum]

13. Interesting. Doctors and medical personel that have served in the war theaters

bring great experience to medical centers and emergency rooms. So an attempted murder turns into an assault with deadly weapon. Then those are the numbers of significance - the assault data.

Also consider that the use of higher caliber hollow point ammunition with its stopping power leads to fewer
shots fired and better survival rates.

[applegrove]

15. Oh my god yeah. The black murder rate would be so much higher

given local ERs that are not as good as ones in other neighbourhoods.

[iverglas]

20. that was indeed an interesting suggestion

Speed with which treatment was sought/response time could also be a factor, the "ambulance" part of the equation.

[applegrove]

42. That too. Kinda blows your mind doesn't it?

[Atypical Liberal]

23. No doubt that medical care plays a large role.

There's no doubt that firearm accidental death rates and firearm homicide rates decline when health care is able to save people who otherwise would have died.

However, note that we also have a declining violent crime rate. It has been declining for a decade, and is at the lowest point in almost 40 years.

[iverglas]

26. see post 22 and the rest

Yeesh. Going all out on this effort, we are.

(a) the study was of criminal assaults, not criminal assaults by firearm

(b) the study was of criminal assaults, not criminal charges/convictions

[Atypical Liberal]

29. Saw it; don't know who Harris is.

All I know is that violent crime is now at a 40-year low.

But even if it wasn't, so what?

I don't understand the desire to link gun control to crime rates. I don't care how many people commit crimes with firearms. I'm not going to allow the actions of criminals to be used as an excuse to curtail my actions.

[iverglas]

30. then why are you posting in the thread?

Harris is the author of the study the thread is about.

I don't understand the desire to link gun control to crime rates. I don't care how many people commit crimes with firearms. I'm not going to allow the actions of criminals to be used as an excuse to curtail my actions.

To borrow your phrase: so what?

Go find a thread that has something to do with any of that, 'k?

[Atypical Liberal]

32. Just pointing out the flaws in your logic, as usual. n/t

[iverglas]

27. for our info

I'm not sure how I managed not to find this the other day ... or why no one else was able to ...

http://people.umass.edu/zguo/iraqi%20war%20/murder%20and%20medicine.pdf

html view if you prefer: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Sd6xGQiQjBQJ:people.umass.edu/zguo/iraqi%2520war%2520/murder%2520and%2520medicine.pdf+harris+%22murder+and+medicine%22&hl=en&gl=ca

Data Sources

Anumber of UCR and other data sources were used in our anal-
yses. The first dataset used contains annual UCR national-level
rates of homicides and aggravated assaults known to the police
from 1960 to 1999. The second UCR dataset used contains annual
national-level counts of homicides and aggravated assaults
known to the police from 1964 to 1999, broken down into four
weapons types: firearm, knife/cutting implement, body (hands,
fists, feet), and other (including blunt instruments, but also explo-
sives, fire, poison, etc.).

The third dataset contains annual UCR police-agency–based
counts of aggravated assaults and homicides aggregated to the
county-level for the years 1960 to 1997 (Chilton & Weber, 2000).
These data are used in our concluding analyses of the countywide
relationship between lethality and medical resources for two time
periods, 1976-1980 and 1994-1997. Unlike the first two UCR
datasets, this dataset involves counts of arrests, not offenses
known to the police. In the concluding analyses, two multiyear
samples of this UCR dataset were merged with data from the
NCHS (1979) and the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1994) on county-
specific medical resources, population, and geographic size. Data
on the presence of county trauma centers (Sheps Rural Studies
Center, 2000) and on the county’s status as part of a larger state/
regional trauma system (Bazzoli & Madura, 1993) were added.
Independent of any trend data, these detailed, local medical data
allow for additional evaluation of the validity of the present mea-
sure of lethality.

[Atypical Liberal]

33. From the article...

"1. Absolute rates of homicide and aggravated assaults in the United States have
dropped significantly since 1994. The causes of the drop—possibly including accelerated
rates of incarceration, community policing, an aging population, and an improved economy—
have been vigorously disputed. Secular trends of similar magnitude can be seen in
Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data prior to 1994. Our focus is on a broader period of time
and, given our dependent variable (lethality of aggravated assaults), is independent of
such fluctuations."

So, for the last 17 years both homicide and aggravated assaults have "dropped significantly".

Even if we ignore homicide altogether, it still looks like things are trending downward.

[iverglas]

34. good god

Check the date of the study, and the dates covered by it ...

Just for starters, of what you need to do here.

[Atypical Liberal]

38. Did that. n/t

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

36. It might also...

...the average criminal doesn't shoot as well.

Also, since...

Back in 1964, 17 percent of assaults were with a gun, and 16 percent of those were fatal. In 1999, ... 19 percent of assaults were with a gun, yet only 5 percent were fatal.

...does the gang popular drive-by "point and spray" tactic affect the injury/death rate at all?

Considering...

An attempted murderer carrying out his crime in an area with poor emergency services is more likely to succeed than one operating near a high-tech trauma center.

...what else can be done?

I'll ask the unpondered question: should it be illegal to open a new or upgrade an existing trauma center in a lower crime area? ;)

[Glassunion]

37. I have no doubt that advances in medical science to contribute

to a lower homicide rate.

However, "violence related" injuries since the time of his study are declining. This is according to the same hospital data that Anthony R. Harris used.

Year | Number | Population | Crude Rate | Age-Adjusted Rate**
2001 | 2,163,373 | 285,081,556 | 758.86 | 753.78
2002 | 2,058,547 | 287,803,914 | 715.26 | 712.39
2003 | 2,110,270 | 290,326,418 | 726.86 | 726.77
2004 | 2,217,826 | 293,045,739 | 756.82 | 758.17
2005 | 2,102,099 | 295,753,151 | 710.76 | 713.61
2006 | 2,149,660 | 298,593,212 | 719.93 | 723.68
2007 | 2,024,768 | 301,579,895 | 671.39 | 677.48
2008 | 2,075,647 | 304,374,846 | 681.94 | 688.74
2009 | 2,003,585 | 307,006,550 | 652.62 | 663.28

However, to your point I do agree that a portion of the homicide rate is lower due to advances in medical science.

[Starboard Tack]

41. Excellent post. Who'd of thunk it? K & R

[rl6214]

43. I thought our medical care sucked compared to can-a-da

[iverglas]

46. and you were right

However, the issue here isn't primary health care or preventive health care or any of that.

Your trauma centres undoubtedly have hugely more experience in dealing with gunshot injuries.

As anyone who glances at the actual study will see, though, the same effect was observed for motor vehicle crash injuries and deaths ...

page 142:

In recent years, the number of annual deaths from motor vehi-
cle crashes in the nation has typically run two to three times the
number of deaths from homicides, with severe trauma the over-
whelmingly clear cause in both cases. Figure 2 indicates that strik-
ingly similar processes may have occurred in lowering the motor
vehicle crash death rate in just about the same proportions (66%
for criminal lethality and 67% for motor vehicle crash lethality)
during the period 1960 to 1995 (National Safety Council, 1997; see
also Forde & Giacoppasi, 1999). Because some medical research-
ers have argued that the MVC mortality rate is an inverse function
of population density (Bentham, 1986; Brodsky & Hakkert, 1983;
Clark & Cushing, 1999; Maio, Burney, Lazzara, & Takla, 1990), it is
worth noting that, by increasing the chances of life-threatening
injuries being witnessed and reported, overall increases in popu-
lation density over time could help explain the drop in MVC
lethality (and possibly the drop in criminal lethality).

Or maybe people shooting guns have got worse at aiming, and people driving cars have got better ...

[ABOB]

50. about those declining homicide rates in the US ...

Iverglas is consistently on the money in understanding "Ambulance-Homicide Theory" and the meaning of Harris's work. Keep in mind that the theory never stated that the proliferation and level of emergency medical services fully determined homicide rates in the U.S. or anywhere else. In looking at historical changes and apparent exceptions to homicide rate changes, also keep in mind that old trauma centers sometimes close, and new trauma centers sometimes open, and that such changes need to be looked at in considering what seem to be contradictions to the theory. Further, in considering the general empirical value of the theory, people opining loosely on the topic should take into account the overwhelming weight of historical drops in the lethality of war casualties among developed nation combatants, and the overwhelming weight of parallel, medical evidence on the increasing survivability of trauma caused by other (non-intentional, non-assault based)trauma.

BTW, Ivergvlas if you can get in touch with me privately I will send on some useful information to you.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

52. welcome to DU

:hi:

[iverglas]

53. well hello

Thanks for the interesting contribution -- luckily, I happened to see that this thread had popped up in the list.

Can't get in touch with you privately yet -- you need some more posts under your belt before you can receive private messages. I think you can't send 'em until you hit the same level.

Just keep posting. ;)

[ABOB]

55. Did you -- especially Iverglas --ever think of emailing the original author?

Not that interested in additional posts. Prefer cool light to raucous sound. In addition to actually reading the 2002 article prompting this thread, why not email the original author....his address might not be that difficult to find.

(attn Iverglas: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111006173614.htm)

[ABOB]

57. Followup to Iverglas In Particular

You can email me at [e-mail]

[Callisto32]

56. If what you suggest is correct, there should be a corresponding uptick in attempted homicide rates..

that are filling in for what would have been completed homicides, but for the application of superior medical care.