it's safe streets versus urban terror; in the '50s ... - Tom G. Palmer

IT'S SAFE STREETS VERSUS URBAN TERROR;IN THE '50S, RAMPANT
CRIME DIDN'T EXIST BECAUSE OFFENDERS FEARED WHAT THE
POLICE WOULD DO.
March 10, 1991
Los Angeles Times, Sunday edition
By LLEWELLYN H. ROCKWELL
If you offer a small boy one candy bar now or 10 tomorrow, he'll grab the
one. That's because children have what economists call a "high time
preference." They want it, and they want it now. The future is a haze.
The punishing of children must take this into account. One good whack
on the bottom can have an effect. A threat about no TV all next year will
not.
As we grow older, this changes. We care more, and think more, about the
future. In fact, this is the very process of maturation. We plan, save, invest
and put off today's gratification until tomorrow.
But street criminals, as economist Murray N. Rothbard points out, have
the time preference of depraved infants. The prospect of a jail sentence 12
months from now has virtually no effect.
As recently as the 1950s -- when street crime was not rampant in America
-- the police always operated on this principle: No matter the vagaries of
the court system, a mugger or rapist knew he faced a trouncing --
proportionate to the offense and the offender -- in the back of the paddy
wagon, and maybe even a repeat performance at the station house. As a
result, criminals were terrified of the cops, and our streets were safe.
Today's criminals know that they probably won't be convicted, and that if
the are, they face a short sentence -- someday. The result is city terrorism,
though we are seldom shown videos of old people being mugged, women
being raped, gangs shooting drivers at random or store clerks having their
throats slit.

What we do see, over and over again, is the tape of some Los Angeles-area
cops giving the what-for to an ex-con. It is not a pleasant sight, of course;
neither is cancer surgery.
Did they hit him too many times Sure, but that's not the issue: It's safe
streets versus urban terror, and why we have moved from one to the other.
Liberals talk about banning guns. As a libertarian, I can't agree. I am,
however, beginning to wonder about video cameras.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
an economics think tank in Auburn, Ala.