A former Tennessee official whose "duties as the former Solid Waste Director included supervising women who served their court-ordered community service time” has been indicted for kidnapping and sexually assaulting seven women under his supervision. pic.twitter.com/C7X3N8uAHd
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) July 16, 2021
Men are different
Okay here’s some weird shite
Fracking Boom Raised Crime Rates in Rural America
July 16, 2021
Michelle Taylor
Scientifically, hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, has been dissected from almost every possible angle. It has been linked to an increase in air and water pollution, earthquakes, traffic and more.
Now, in a paper recently published in The Extractive Industries and Society, a group of researchers from Russia and Pennsylvania have added another one to the list: violent crime.
For the study, the economists focused on three rural U.S. states that experienced the shale oil and gas boom after 2007: West Virginia, North Dakota and Arkansas. They merged data from shale gas production records, fracking boom maps, the U.S. Census Bureau and the FBI from the years 1999 to 2015. The researchers used the post-2007 fracking boom period as a natural experiment.
Overall, the results show violent crime rose by 36% in the three rural states during the fracking boom—costing an extra $15.68 million a year (in 2008 money). Murder and non-negligent homicide increased the most, followed by forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
The researchers attribute the increases to three fracking-specific causes.
First, fracking jobs are typically low-skilled and temporary. Therefore, according to the authors, people with criminal records are likely to disproportionately move to areas experiencing a shale boom to find employment. Moreover, the fracking boom is associated with increased income inequality as the local royalty income is concentrated among just a small segment of the population. Previous studies have shown that inequality provides a rational incentive to commit a crime.
Additionally, fracking jobs are male-dominated, meaning the shale boom in a specific area often created an imbalance in the gender ratio, provoking an increase of crimes against women.
“Businesses like a bar, prostitution and drugs boom with the fracking boom and increase illicit behavior,” the researchers write in their paper.
Third, residents in fracking states are disproportionately affected by toxic elements like pollution, noise, water quality and traffic. This leads to tensions between local residents and temporary workers and, as a result, causes an increase in violent crime.
All of this adds additional burden on local authorities and law enforcement agencies, as evidenced by a 2012 report that shows a 1/3 increase of Pennsylvania State Police incidents/calls for Marcellus rural counties compared with non-Marcellus counties.