“Crime” will be coming back as an issue.

These are just some initial thoughts. I am going to do a bit more research and will post a longer note later.

I read Mark Penn’s book Microtrends earlier this year and one of the more interesting parts was the massive amount (600k per year) of felons that are being released from America’s prisons.

So we are releasing hundreds of thousands of the hardest to employ Americans at the same time our unemployment rates are spiking. What does this mean? Well if historical rates of recidivism are right then we are going to see a national crime wave that will leave many Americans fearing for their personal saftey. So you can pretty much guaruntee that political campaigns will gear their message to match.

You can also pretty much count on bet that when people don’t feel safe they will start buying guns. As crime rates go up there will be those that will want to blame it on the guns and try to limit ownership. The good news is that most folks will not be to willing to part with those guns if they don’t feel safe.

More later…