Quote:
Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007
That's not true. Lots of people in rural areas go for walks out at night.
Didn't we already show that experience in the UK has demonstrated that crime does not increase when they turn the streets lights off at night?
Yes we did. One last time: Turning street lights off at night does not increase crime. See post #53 for details.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, once again, if we did my suggestion, since lights would not go off until, say, 10 or 11 at night, that is plenty of time for people to walk their dogs, go for a walk or whatnot. So the women who might be afraid of being jumped in the dark need not worry about that as long as they go out and do whatever they want to do before 10 or 11.
I'm not suggesting eliminating street lights altogether, as I said, I'm only suggesting turning them off after a certain time at night. At least on Sunday-Thursday nights, most people are in bed by 10 or 11 anyway. |
From what I've read, those studies aren't incompatible with the idea that crime rates
per person who's out there (instead of just per capita in the neighborhood) are much higher when the streets are dark, because they don't seem to account for the fact that many people might then just stay inside instead of venturing out in the dark.
Example:
Before: 1% of people who get out at night (in lit streets) get mugged. There are 10,000 people in the neighborhood. 1,000 of them get out at night. That's 10 crimes per night.
After: the streets are now dark, and 100% of people who get out at night (in dark streets) now get gruesomely killed. There are still the same 10,000 people in the neighborhood. 9,995 of them stay home at night now, because they aren't crazy. The remaining 5 venture out in the dark and get killed.
The cold hard data on paper will say that turning off the street lighting has reduced the crime rate by half. Meanwhile the reality is that the streets are now much more dangerous than back when they were lit at night.