What would be the most effective way to reduce violent crime?

Guilianator.

Kill all of those responsible.

Good jobs. It is that simple. If everyone has a well paying job they are less likely to stab you for your iPod.

Since I’m from Texas, more executions.

If you make the punishment severe enough – people won’t do it.

It’s a shortsighted view but I’m too tired to play Devil’s advocate.

I think squirbel forgot the </sarcasm> tag.

heh…

Opportunities for education, personal fufillment, safety and fair treatment. Easy as pie.

1-education
2-more jobs
3-truth in sentencing

Legalize all drugs. Disregard this answer if the following question is how do you reduce violent crime and prevent a health epidemic,

make guns illegal. make pot legal.

From a security perspective, in a perfect world, nobody can do anything.

Make all private ownership of weapons illegal, and disarm the citizens.

Implement street executions for minor offenses.

Install a socialistic dictator, and give all your money to the government as taxes. The government can then pass out whatever you need, so nobody will have more than anybody else. Eliminate the concept of “keeping up with the Jones’”, and nobody will kill you for your iPod.

@ronski I don’t think making guns illegal will work. They’re already breaking the law; I don’t think they care about the added illegality of owning or using a gun. I agree with you about legalizing weed, it would cut down on SOME crime. Other actions will have to be taken for the violent crime associated with harder drugs.

Get the young ones involved in the community. Get them into sports, services for the elderly, teach them compassion and teamwork. That these things don’t thrive or exist in poorer communities may be why those communities are the hardest hit by crime, along side the lack of good jobs.

@3or4monsters yes, perhaps we are too far gone, although it does seem to work in some other countries. why not ours?

I like what you say about compassion. That is something we should teach in school. I woudn’t say that all of those things don’t exist in all poorer communities though, but I guess money can buy you anything you want…including getting out of sticky situations.

@ronski I realize my wording was kind of vague—I didn’t mean to imply that compassion or teamwork doesn’t exist in poorer communities, but that programs for community integration were scarce or don’t exists. Sorry!

I’m in the decriminalize drugs camp. A lot of crime is done in pursuit of drugs, and if people had a way of satisfying their jones less expensively, and with support to quit, we should be able to reduce drug-related violent crime significantly. This includes organized crime killings as well as user violence.

Another source of violence and murder is domestic murder. I think something between a quarter and a half of murders are between people who know each other and share the same living quarters. I don’t remember the exact figure, but it’s a lot.

We need to train people on alternative problem-solving mechanisms. People need relationship classes, and training for jobs. Economic problems are a source of many domestic problems, as are infidelity, or imagined infidelity. Abuse is a serious problem, and we need to publicize it and people’s options if they are being abused.

Violence in assaults and robberies—I don’t have any ideas. Maybe jobs would help. I’m not sure about that.

One thing that I know won’t work is throwing more people in jail, and executing more people. That has little effect on crime, and the effect it has is already there.

So there you go. Elect me president, and I’ll do this for you, as well as giving you all health coverage while saving billions of dollars. We’ll give everyone who need it, housing, and improve employment at the same time. Sound unbelieveable? It isn’t.