Heaven, hell, and crime rates

Andrew Gelman writes:

Shariff and Rhemtulla find the interesting result that, in a cross-national comparison of countries with data from the World Values Survey, the prevalence of belief in heaven correlates with higher crime rates, and belief in hell correlates with lower crime rates. These patterns remain after controlling for some country-level variables including indicators for the dominant religion in the country. This result surprised me at first—if asked, I would’ve had the vague idea that belief in hell is associated with violent, unsettled lives—but it makes sense from simple psychology: belief in a pleasant afterlife reduces people’s inhibitions while belief in a punishing God could deter one from crime. One can also imagine these effects at an aggregate level whether or not they appear for individuals. A society with widespread belief in hell could have a more punitive culture in which crimes are more strongly frowned upon, etc.

See more here.  

Crime Prediction

RICHARD BERK LIKES to think he knows what criminals will do—even before they know. The statistics professor, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, was recently willing to show off his skills. “What is the highest-risk age for re-offending?” he asked. I hazarded the early 20s, and was quickly corrected. “Teens,” he responded. “Actually, the [rate of re-offending] falls off very quickly in the early 20s.” But the trend line doesn’t hold, Berk explained. Violent activity starts to increase again in individuals a decade or so older. “You’re picking up the domestic-violence offenders,” Berk surmised. “They need someone to beat up on, and they’re in their late 30s.”

This sort of behavioral analysis is at the center of Berk’s expanding work as something of a crime predictor—a number cruncher whose algorithms are helping police and corrections officials forecast recidivism. The Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, for instance, has been working with the professor for the past two years. Keep reading . . . 

From an article by Nadya Labi in The Atlantic. HT: Julio Cole. 

Two papers on what seems to work against crime and homicides

1) Violence in and Around Entertainment Districts: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Late‐Night Lockout Legislation by Mazerolle et al. 

Our research shows that 3 a.m. lockout legislation led to a direct and significant reduction in the number of violent incidents inside licensed premises. Indeed, the lockouts cut the level of violent crime inside licensed premises by half. 

That is from the abstract. Unfortunately I did not find the paper. 

2) The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective by Meghir, Palme, and Schnabel.  

 . . . [E]ducation policy, which increases compulsory schooling, can reduce the crime rates of the children of those directly affected by the reform.