Monday, June 09, 2008

“The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men.”


According to her research, U.S. counties that have slaughterhouses consistently have higher rates of violent crime than demographically similar counties that don’t.

Do hamburgers cause crime?

The increases in crime have been theorized as being linked to the demographic characteristics of the workers, social disorganization in the communities, and increased unemployment rates. While discussed theoretically, none of these explanations have been empirically tested. Further, none of the literature to date has addressed the possibility of a link between the increased crime rates observed and the violent work conducted in slaughterhouses. The purpose of this study is to begin to fill these gaps.

Spill-Over from 'The Jungle' Into the Larger Community
Image: McDonald's Corp.

1 comment:

paul said...

the freakonomics article's really intersting, i always wondered what happened to the people that actually had to work at slaughterhouses, makes sense that no one wants to kill for their own food, which raises the question of so why do we do it.