Temporal & Seasonal Aspects of Crime

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 29th Apr 2024

There are three types of crimes for which police incident reports are likely to reflect the actual number of offenses. They are homicides, auto thefts, and burglaries. It’s hard to re-classify a homicide as something else, and auto thefts along with burglaries generally get reported, as a police report is needed for insurance reasons. One of the things that is important to note when looking at property crimes such as burglaries is that the time of the incident represents the time when the offense was discovered, rather than when it actually occurred e.g., a burglary that has an incident time...Click To Read More

Stockholm Syndrome

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 22nd Apr 2024

Last week I put on a hostage/abduction seminar for my students. This wasn’t a “sensational” seminar that looked at terrorist type situations, such as being a passenger on a hijacked plane, but one that looked at less “spectacular” situations e.g., incidents where an estranged partner who has been denied access rights (by the courts) to their children after the relationship ended, engages in a kidnapping or a “siege” situation; one where they barricade themselves and their ex and children members in their home etc. When the FBI first set up their HNU (Hostage Negotiation Unit), they designed it for dealing...Click To Read More

The Apple River Stabbing

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 15th Apr 2024

Most violence occurs due to bad social interactions. Sometimes, as in the case of the Apple River Stabbing, it leads to a fatality. In this incident, 54-year-old, Nicolae Miu, fatally stabbed 17-year-old, Isaac Schuman, and injured four others during a fight. Despite the incident being captured on video, it is unclear what the fight was actually about, and why Miu engaged with the group of teenagers in the first place. The legal question that was being asked last Thursday was whether Miu acted in self-defense i.e., did he pull the knife and stab Schuman because he feared for his safety...Click To Read More

Social Awkwardness – Saying No

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 8th Apr 2024

I like people, probably prefer dogs, but I’m not a big fan of “unnecessary” social interactions. I actively/deliberately choose gas/petrol stations that are self-service, so I don’t have to make small talk to an attendant, and I have always been a fan of the self-checkout in supermarkets for the same reason. If I don’t need to talk to you, I don’t want to. To some this may seem rude, but I’m more at ease in my world than in anybody else’s, and often “unnecessary” social interactions take me away from mine and make me uncomfortable. I only started working in...Click To Read More

Income Inequality & Violence

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 1st Apr 2024

For the first part of the 20^th Century it was thought, in many academic circles, that crime was largely the result and product of poverty; with the solution to reducing crime rates being the reduction of poverty. Then something “strange” happened: the post-war crime rate started to soar despite a dramatic increase in incomes and the standard of living (an article about this can be accessed here). The causal link between poverty and crime seemed to have been broken, or at the very least substantially weakened. However, a confusing fact remained: the areas/neighborhoods within a city...Click To Read More