The Tipping Point + Freakonomics re: crime

[suzzer99]

Basically the theory is that with a new drug as powerful as crack - you had 2 major new crime contributors. 1) a giant batch of brand new crackheads running around hopped up trying to get money for more crack and just generally being out of their minds. 2) New channels for distribution, new reasons to fight over turf, lots of new money to be made for gangs to fight over basically.

So the natural solutions that happened:

1) Full time crackheads don't stay active crackheads for more than a year or two. They either wind up dead, in jail, or get clean. So once you have that initial surge of males and females age 16-xx, new crackheads coming on line will be a trickle compared to it.

2) Lots of kids saw their parents or older siblings lose everything to crack. Those kids tend to shy away from trying it themselves.

3) Once the distribution channels have been fairly well established, AND demand recedes, there's a lot less chance for skirmishes.