5 Crazy Ways Society Has Changed Criminal Behavior
As I learned from the classic Zack Snyder film Watchmen: “The times they are a-changin'.” Culture constantly shifts to accommodate adjusting social mores, and advancing technology allows us to find somebody to squirt McDonald’s ketchup packets into our mouths with just a few swipes of the phone. But times don’t just a-change for denizens of fast food chains -- they also change for criminals, which can lead to some fascinating new a-crime trends.
Feminism Is Helping To Close The Gender Gap For Criminals
While society still has a long way to go to help close the gender gap when it comes to pay, there are some very encouraging signs that women criminals may finally outpace their male counterparts perpetrating the same crimes. The number of women in jail is apparently growing faster now than at any other time in history. Truly, this is a wonderful time to be alive and a woman and... in jail, maybe? I think I lost the thread there.
There are several possible contributing factors to what researchers are (stupidly) referring to as “pink-collar crime,” but interestingly a lot of them seem to blame feminism—and not necessarily in bad ways. In 1975, a criminologist named Freda Adler made the strange claim:
“In the same way that women are demanding equal opportunity in the fields of legitimate endeavor, a similar number of determined women are forcing their way into the world of major crimes.”
So basically exactly how your mom may have fought for equal pay for equal work at her accounting firm, your step-mom wants to be seen as just as good at stabbing dudes as her male ... co-workers? This isn’t just talk, either, because we’re seeing the rise of all-female gangs like the Bad Barbies who go around revenge-murdering people. Additionally, we may see more female criminals because women are now the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of homes, meaning they’re more likely to directly feel responsible for financial pressure and decide to solve their problems by breaking bad.
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Albeit impressively skillfully.
On the opposite side of this whole debate is an article from 2015 that claims it’s not so much that there are more female criminals as there are fewer male ones. The thought is that men are learning from women that they need to chill the hell out, and hypermasculinity isn’t as socially well-received as it used to be. And when men stop being douchebags, they commit fewer crimes.
Either way, it’s good to see feminism having a real-world impact.
Phasing Out Physical Currency Makes Sweden's Criminals More Creative
Sweden as a country is working to get rid of cash entirely in the next few years. In part, this is because cash has become something of a nuisance in this age of Venmo and “tap and pay” and Yu-Gi-Oh! card bartering, but also because Sweden has a pretty significant history of bank robberies. So the solution seemed simple: Get rid of the cash, and you get rid of the robberies.
And, actually, it’s worked! There were exactly two Swedish bank robberies in 2016 versus 110 in 2008. The problem, however, is that while bank robberies are down, every other crime is spiking, including dope-ass, high-speed, mid-highway heists. Because cash isn’t really a thing anymore, criminals have turned to stealing tech products from moving trucks, pickpocketing people’s wallets to nab credit cards, and even some sexy, exotic crimes like stealing valuable plants and (in at least one instance) a $120,000 owl.
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I mean, it is an owl. But still.
Similarly, they’re getting better at online phishing schemes and cryptojacking and other internet-based shenanigans. So if you get an email that claims to be from the Swedish Chef who says he has the secret recipe for a delicious “moofin” for the low, low price of your Social Security number, do not respond. And that advice is coming from an honest, muffin-loving, Sweden-trusting internet writer, so you know it's solid.
Of course, the whole idea behind a cashless society was to reduce crime, but it's possible it may, in fact, result in an increase. In addition to these crazy Hollywood-type crimes, there is some research indicating it’s possible that as we gain “distance” from money, it becomes easier for us to psychologically justify stealing it. Whereas most of us would feel weird stealing a $5 bill from our co-worker’s desk, many wouldn’t think twice about taking home a dozen pencils for— wait, do people still use pencils?
Consequently, as we move even further away from cash, it may be easier for us to rationalize swiping, say, a bunch of iMacs nobody has technically paid for yet. It's pretty easy to see how that could be viewed as a victimless crime (sort of). Except maybe the criminals are actually the victims, because now they're stuck with the iMacs.
Crimes Requiring Buddies Increase Exponentially In Cities
As you’d expect, the more people you shove into a city, the more criminals there are. If that's the kind of information you wouldn't expect, welcome. To society, I mean. I have just so many questions about where you've been and what you've been doing, but we can get to that later.
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Utah?
As we already know, all sorts of crazy things affect crime rates. And as it turns out, robbery and car theft grow exponentially faster the more people you cram into cities. So much so, we know it’s not because there are simply more carjackers or because the Fast & Furious crew only operates in localities with gentrified fair trade coffee shops.
See, unlike something simple like the flaming bag of dog poop gag, stealing a car or robbing a bank isn’t usually the kind of job for just one sad man who has abandoned all hope for originality. As Dom Toretto would say, it requires a family. But finding like-minded people can be difficult in a town with a low population. Being a serial killer, for example, is still a feasible criminal career in a sparsely populated locality, but what some researchers call “social crimes” require a large pool of potential partners to draw from.
It’s actually pretty similar to starting a business. Many start-ups begin in cities because having a higher population density makes it easier to find collaborators and people willing to take a risk on a project. Well, the same thing is true with carjackers, which makes this the perfect time to announce my new Rüber app for young entrepreneurs looking for an exciting business opportunity committing grand theft auto every other weekend.
Japan Sees A Huge Increase In Older Stalkers
To say that Japan has recently seen a significant increase in the amount of stalkers over the age of 60 might be downplaying it a bit. The reality is more like a 500 percent increase in cute old men tottering around and ... murdering people, probably? It’s actually getting so bad and weird and insane that Japan was forced to adjust their laws to more stringently police stalking threats received via email.
But what’s interesting is why older men are trading chess in the park and larger than life tales of firecrackers and missing toes for becoming active predators. Firstly, and obviously, there are more old stalkers because there are more old people, generally. Back before penicillin, everybody died younger, including society’s monsters. But thanks to modern medicine, you can be a creep well into your eighties. Progress!
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“Well, Tom, if you had bothered to read the email I sent, you would have known that #4 Discussion of Unintended Consequences comes after #3 Tomato Stabbery.”
The other, more interesting theory is that Japan may be seeing a spike in older stalkers because they’re Baby Boomers, specifically. This isn’t to say that Baby Boomers are inherently bad or something, but especially in Japanese culture, Boomers were part of a large generation and therefore were forced to be highly competitive and devote an inordinate amount of time to work and productivity at the expense of developing close personal relationships. Fast forward a few decades, and now they’re retirees with nothing to do and a dearth of meaningful relationships in their life. They’re attempting to kindle something they missed out on, but they end up doing so in the worst, crappiest ways possible.
When you think about it, not forgoing relationships in favor of work is basically the lesson characters learn in most romantic comedies. Also similar to romantic comedies: all the stalking.
Russia Has A Booming Dissertation Black Market
Some countries struggle to shut down black markets for things like organs or ... peanut butter cups, but one of Russia’s most prominent black markets deals exclusively in dissertations. Yes, Russians are out there either buying crappy, plagiarized articles or paying ghostwriters to help them gain advanced degrees and generally look smart. These aren’t just janitors trying to impress their friends; we’re talking people as high up as the chairman of Russia’s largest parliamentary body and possibly even Putin himself. And the weird thing is, they’re not really hiding it.
The dissertations these guys turn in—and get away with—are sometimes hilariously terrible. For example, one dude turned in a paper about the meat industry by simply taking another dissertation about the chocolate industry and literally using the Find & Replace feature to replace “‘chocolate’ with ‘beef,’ ‘dark chocolate’ with ‘home-grown beef,’ and ‘white chocolate’ with “‘imported beef.’” The numbers and analysis and everything remained identical, except now they inexplicably claim to refer to meat instead of chocolate. And I am hoping, beyond all hope, that there is at least one graph in there discussing the meltability of various beef products in mouths versus hands.
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I cannot imagine the visual images some of these papers must portray.
In another dissertation, an article on breast cancer was adapted straight from an article on stomach cancer which was itself ripped from an article on cancer in dogs and rats. Man, chemistry would have been so much easier if I could have just turned in my Twilight fanfiction with the main characters’ names changed to Boron and Chlorine.
But here’s the thing: Nobody cares about any of this. Well, there is an entire website dedicated to exposing these essentially fake dissertations (and by extension, fake advanced degrees) that has uncovered thousands of these works and the men who purchased them, but nothing has really changed. Which is weird, because you’d think they’d be at least a little worried that the doctor about to perform their vasectomy might have only picked up limited information when he was copying and pasting “vas deferens” over “rodent stomach lining” on his super important medical paper.
Jordan Breeding is the creator, writer, and host of Cracked’s new YouTube series “Your Brain On Cracked.”
