Trump sees ‘carnage’ from America’s drug boom. But major cities are getting safer
Just as mobile technology has transformed ordinary commerce, it has revolutionized illicit markets, too, making the drug trade more predictable and less lethal
The Washington Post (US)
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
The president and his attorney general have blamed the drug boom for “American carnage,” but the latest crime statistics suggest that the relationship between illegal narcotics and violence in U.S. cities is not so clear. In many hubs of the drug trade, the homicide rate decreased last year. Major American cities appear to be getting safer even as they are flooding with dope. These statistics present what appears to be a broad, long-term decoupling of homicide rates and the illegal drug trade in many U.S. cities, a trend that counters conventional wisdom about the origins of urban violence. Criminologists see many potential factors, but one may play the biggest role in reducing drug-related killings: smartphones.
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