Crime

Gun violence follows epidemiological trajectories much like an actual virus, according to the research of Yale sociologist Andrew Papachristos. Both victims and perpetrators tend to belong to a tightly linked social network where transmission bounces from person to person, a process Stephen Hargarten, a professor and gun violence researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, likens to a “bio-social disease.” As such, it’s easy to fall into the illusion that unless you live in a dangerous neighborhood, you’re inoculated from the problem of gun violence. But no one can escape its economic effects, which ripple societywide and cost the average…

Car thefts have exploded, and victims are paying a steep price.