Capital of Crime? It ain't NYC

"Rape! Murder! It's just a shot away! It's just a shot away!"

So begins the Rolling Stones' epic song "Gimme Shelter" from their 1969 album Let It Bleed. You've only heard it in every Martin Scorsese movie ever made, including probably Kundun. 

Anyway, if you listen to boring old men like Donald Trump or others, they'll try to convince you that America is more violent and crime ridden than ever -- when the truth is actually the opposite. Remember when Trump said of immigrants, "They're bringing crime. They're bringing drugs. They're rapists" -- turns out, the only ones importing crime to America these days are members of the Trump Administration. 

In NYC, the crime rate is at historic lows. In fact, this is how low it's gotten: this year, so far, there have been more murders in London than NYC. That's either an historic first or an historic first in a really, really, really long time (London is nearly 2000 years old, NYC only about 400). After all, there are lots more guns floating around the streets of NYC than London so what gives? Why has it become more violent now?

The answer: gangs. Violent, bloody, skinhead street gangs.

They've plagued Good Ol' London town for decades and now the mayhem they cause is worse than ever. Oh, but they're white. That's right, it's WHITE PEOPLE that are making London more crime ridden than ever. That sorta goes against the paranoid American grain of brown people being the root of all crime, here and everywhere. 

One thing that skinheads and violent people also love to do in England is "glassing" -- slamming a glass of beer over someone's head so that it shatters, the person is all bloody, and mayhem ensues. You saw it in the movie Trainspotting and it's apparently a favorite past-time of London pub culture. In fact, people who do it don't even go to jail! Imagine that in NYC -- you'd be in the pokey in no time.

Here are the lessons from the spike in crime in London vs. the historic lows in NYC: crime is not the sole province of brown people, poverty and cultural alienation of any stripe creates breeding grounds for crime anywhere and everywhere, and crime can be brought down anywhere and everywhere. Let's hope that happens in London too -- and stays true for NYC.