The NY Times reports that US crime has decreased to a 40-year low. It is a trend that baffles crime experts. Perhaps it is the same bafflement that has plagued other experts.
Their paradigm is unsurprisingly economically oriented. Crime, according to economists, is supposed to increase during recession crises. But then again, many economists had the same bafflement over their lack of prediction of the current crisis.
I dream of a future where we get over the ancient narrative that economics drives human behavior more significantly than other non-economic factors. When are we going to give credence to the plethora of other more social and so-called intangible variables? When are we going to invite anthropologists and social network scientists into conversations so they are no longer dominated by naive economic inaccuracies.
