[Netz]

This may be true but what violent crime rampant during the Great Depression when young people worked their butt's off for a few dollars a week? Is a bad economy the reason for wanton violent crime? As the story said, the victim was not robbed just beaten. That is like a scene out of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Maybe incomes and prospects are bad but the sheer random nature of violent crime is getting worse and worse and whet needs to be done is enforcement and some serious penalties like the days of old with “20 years hard labor at Sing Sing”. Let ‘em split boulders for 20 years...all that has happened in the last 40 years is a feeling that you can get away with it in the courts.

[kearnyirish2]

There was plenty of violent crime during the Depression; Bonnie & Clyde were lauded during their murderous escapades, and the mob came to the forefront at that time.

The random (non-economic) crimes are just depraved minds of now-grown children who were born only for gubmint $$$ (never loved in a parental sense) coming of age.