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Notes -
I got into a discussion with someone regarding whether poverty was sufficient to explain disparate crime rates between different ethnicities. To this end, I ended up citing https://www.city-journal.org/poverty-and-violent-crime-dont-go-hand-in-hand this study, which goes into the poverty level of NYC of different ethnicities, and their crime rate. It demonstrated that although Asians had higher rates of poverty in NYC, compared to even African Americans, their crime rate remained the lowest of the various ethnicities studied.
The response of the person was 1) that because NYC was the 'wealthiest city in the US', the city was not going to be representative of the average American. Specifically, he stated "I think if you extrapolate data from the outliers (the highest cost of living city) onto the average American, then you are trying to "smuggle in hidden confounders" which is why I have an issue with your study." Later on, he also noted that 2) the study was not conducted over a long period of time, but rather only looking at data from 2020. Therefore, it could be a temporary effect.
My response to his criticism was pointing out that when trying to see whether there are differences between different groups, it isn't necessarily important for the individuals studies to be the centered around the "average" individual per say. What's important is that the individuals studied all have been subjected to the same incentives and forces which cause this deviation from the average. That way, their effects cancel out, unless we can see some specific reason for there to be an unequal effect on each ethnicity.
Yes, NY is a non-modal city, but the influences that fact has should equally affect white people, black people, and asian people. Therefore, whatever distortion NYC has by its citizens being on average richer, shouldn't matter, because 1) we are explicitly looking at comparative income/poverty level, and there are still poor people in NYC, and 2) the effects cancel out because everyone in NYC being subjected to the special circumstances of NYC.
This in fact makes the study better than a 'naive' use of survey data across the US, because Asian people, Black people, and white people are distributed unevenly across the country, and in fact a more general survey would be liable to confounders like rural vs urban location, north vs south, etc., whereas studying a single city would in fact be a superior methodology.
We never got to actually discuss whether the data being from 2020 was sufficient to ignore the study. I suppose it could have gone to talking about the effects of Covid on crime, especially hate crimes, but the conversation was unable to get even close to this.
On reflection, (since the conversation I had was very unsatisfying with the guy), I wanted to see whether that logic was actually sound, or if in fact it was just me sounding good in the moment.
I also was wondering if people had other similar studies which demonstrated that poverty was not sufficient to explain variable crime rates across ethnicities, especially when it comes to Asians and Asian Americans.
There's also this Random Critical Analysis post.
Also important to note that the correlation between crime and poverty is confounded by personality and cognitive traits. People with low intelligence and poor impulse control tend to commit more crime and not be very employable. That doesn't prove that the poverty causes the crime. So much of what R*dditors "know" about sociology is either just made up, or at best based on low-quality research that fails to account for obvious confounders.
I don't think actual sociologists are any better, at least if the ones I saw teaching in college were anything to go by.
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I think for some reason many people find sociological explanations as erudite or sophisticated. The truth value is assumed because the explanation flatters the believer.
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