"cryptoguy" <treifamily@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
On Apr 10, 1:10 pm, mstem...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Michael Stemper) wrote:
> In article <p20tc5xtek....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Nate Edel writes:
> >Keith F. Lynch <k...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> If no government had ever locked up any murderer, how long would it
> >> take all the free-lance and gang killers -- Charles Manson's
> >> "family,"
> >> the DC snipers, Ted Bundy, the Unabomber, Tim McVeigh, the Son of
> >> Sam, Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, the Mafia, MS-13,
> >> the
> >> Bloods, the Crips, etc. -- to approach this total? Even if none of
> >> them were ever stopped by any of their would-be victims, I expect
> >> it
> >> would take thousands of years.
>
> >I doubt it would take that long; with the current murder rate in the
> >US
> >alone, there are about 15,000 murders a year in the US. That would be
> >600
> >years to reach 9 million.
>
>> More quibbling. Presumably, if none of the murderers were ever locked
>> up,
>> at least some of them would continue murdering, thus raising the
>> murder
>> rate above its current value.
>We can look at periods when police forces didn't exist, or were
>ineffective, to get some notion. Here's an interesting graph:
>http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2007/04/german_murder_r.html
>It shows German murder rates from about 1250 to the present. During
>most of
>that period, the rate was about 10x the present one, with a peak about
>100x
>in the late 14th century. (The chart shows only 'ordinary' murders,
>not wars
>or genocides). Note that the peak was well before the development of
>handguns.
Many murders wouldn't have been classed as such in times before
moderately effective investigation techniques. Poisonings which looked
like someone simply got sick and died. Children killed by family
members, again with the claim that they got sick and died. There's also
the issue of people of some race or class groups not counted as worth
included in murder rates, by some statistic gatherers at some times.
>So, if murder wasn't punished, the rate would probably rise at least
>severalfold.
I think you're right.
Karl Johanson
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