Baer goes on to repeat this tidbit:

Another idea, he says, is to have members of the Nation of Islam walk the streets in neighborhoods: "When they tell you to get out they don't give you any Miranda warnings." . . . "The violence would stop in a year," says Stone, "just by their presence in their garb (generally Middle East thobe and kufi)."

Talk about a stupid thing to say. You summed it up best Dan, Baer did us all a real disservice with this one.

Let's just assume that welfare payouts really were awesomely phat.
They aren't, but let's say they were.
Giving people money just doesn't cause crime. The very idea is ludicrous. People commit crime because they are anxious for money. Any fresh, free cash at all will undermine that anxiety. It's really that simple.
Any convoluted argument that says that giving people money, any amount, contributes to crime has got to be wrong once Occam's Razor is applied.
There are multiple potential explanations for rising crime in Philadelphia. This one is not only not the simplest, it isn't even close to being the simplest; Williams's argument is convoluted to the point of incomprehensibility, and, therefore, almost has to be wrong, based on this simple, age-old guideline [that is, when faced with multiple explanations for a problem, the simplest one is probably right].

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BradyDale OnLine

thousands were taken off the welfare rolls and a limit was imposed on how long you could collect welfare (i.e. lifetime entitlement was ended). Crime declined nationally during those years. Obviously, there are many factors for this, but my point is that those who say ending welfare would lead to an increase in crime are not necessarily correct.

On August 3rd Baer reduced the problem of gun violence to young boys without proper adult supervision – specifically from fathers. As a source for his argument he relied on the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) which has a study that attempts to link absent fathers to juvenile delinquency. If you download their study , weapons use was not explained by family structure or father closeness. Not to let even his own facts get in the way the NFI representative cites instead:

“…a study of Prince George's County, Md., neighborhoods showing every 1 percent increase in female-headed households increases the odds of being murdered there.”

But why are there so many female-headed households?

Before we get to that just a brief aside on Baer’s source the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI). The NFI was founded by Don Eberly former president of Pennsylvania’s own Commonwealth Foundation. Eberly is now in the Bush Administration as Deputy Assistant to the President for Faith Based and Community Initiatives. The NFI has received funding support from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation among others.

August 10th

Now back to Baer on August 10th, this time with a little more vigor:

“Unwed birth rates in the city and absent fathers are proven links to violent crime.”

Again why are there so many absent fathers? For that answer Baer looks to the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, Walter Williams who argues:

“…welfare benefits effectively replace a father and offer too great a "temptation" of housing allowance and food stamps for a pregnant teen in a house without a father…I don't know the answer, I really don't, but one idea is making welfare damn near impossible."

So what does the actual research show? Here is a summary by Harvard sociologists Robert J. Sampson and William Julius Wilson.

“Are the Causes of Black Crime Unique? Disentangling the contextual basis for race and crime requires racial disaggregation of both the crime rate and the explanatory variables of theoretical interest. This approach was used in recent research that examined racially disaggregated rates of homicide and robbery by juveniles and adults in over 150 U.S. cities in 1980 (Sampson 1987). Substantively, the theory explored the effects of black male joblessness and economic deprivation on violent crime as mediated by black family disruption. The Results supported the main hypothesis and showed that the scarcity of employed black males relative to black females was directly related to the prevalence of families headed by women in black communities (W.J. Wilson 1987). In turn, black family disruption was substantially related to rates of black murder and robbery, especially by juveniles (see also Messner and Sampson 1991). These effects were independent of income, region, density, city size, and welfare benefits.”

And this is also interesting again from Sampson and Wilson:

“Despite a tremendous difference in mean levels of family disruption among black and white communities, the percentage of white families headed by a female also had a large positive effect on white juvenile and white adult violence. In fact, the predictors of white robbery were shown to be in large part identical in sign and magnitude to those for blacks. Therefore, the effect of black family disruption on black crime was independent of common cited alternative explanations (e.g. region, density, age composition) and could not be attributed to unique cultural factors within the black community given the similar effect of white family disruption on white crime. To be clear, we are not dismissing the relevance of culture. As discussed more below, our argument is that if cultural influence exits, they vary systematically with structural features of the urban environment”

To restate the linkages here is Sampson from the original paper, Urban Black Violence: The Effect of Male Joblessness and Family Disruption, published in the American Journal of Sociology.

“…the effects of black male joblessness and economic deprivation on crime appear to be mediated in large part by family disruption. In other words, while male joblessness has little or no direct effect on crime, it has the strongest overall effect on family disruption, which in turn is the strong predictor of black violence.”

To simplify, it’s jobs stupid!

Baer through Williams is parroting the work of Charles Murray the author of Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 which argues that social spending perpetuates poverty. Murray’s work although popular among libertarians like Williams is not supported by empirical research. Murray you will note is also the author of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life which makes the case that poverty is also a function of innate differences in intelligence.

It’s truly a shame that Baer used 1000 plus words on violence in Philadelphia to pander to views on the issue not supported by the facts. One in five young people age 16 to 29 living in the city of Philadelphia were not working and not enrolled in school in 2000. The absence of high paying employment and training opportunities linked to good jobs for Philadelphia’s poor represents the single greatest challenge facing the city. Shifting the debate to the choices people make rather than also considering the quality of choices people have allows Baer to avoid consideration of the difficult public choices required to stem the rising tide of violence. Baer’s carelessness appeals to the all too common willingness to divide the world into “them” and “us”. The reality is we are all in this together, it’s just that Baer and his ilk have first class seats on the same runaway train.