Mingers and muggers

No-one has pointed out the connection between New Labour's Respect Action Plan and rising demand for plastic surgery. But there is one - it's that ugly people are more likely to commit crime than good-looking ones.
The evidence is in this paper (pdf), presented - rather bravely - to the American Economic Association's annual conference. It estimates that very attractive people are less likely to commit a wide range of crimes than ugly people; because the measure of crime was self-reported, these figures allow for the fact that good-looking women are less likely to be arrested and charged. Intriguingly, the effect of appearance on criminality is more robust for women than men. And the correlation is robust to controls for ethnicity and parental background. 
There are two reasons  why mingers are more likely to be muggers.
1. Ugly people earn less than attractive ones, even controlling for other things. With prospects in the legitimate labour market worse, mingers therefore face higher relative returns to crime. Incentives matter.
2. Ugly people do worse at school, and so have lower job prospects. Messrs Mocan and Tekin found that attractiveness was positively correlated with scores on a vocabulary test. They suggest this is because ugly people get less attention from teachers.  But it might also be because beauty and intelligence are correlated (pdf). Whatever, this too reduces returns in the legitmate labour market for mingers, and so increases the incentive to commit crime.
All this suggests the once-fashionable interest in criminal physiognomy might not be as stupid as we used to think.
It also means that, if New Labour were really serious about being "tough on the causes of crime", it would seek ways of making people better looking. After all, New Labour is at it's best when it's boldest.
Another thing: you can put these points to Louise Casey, head of the Respect taskforce, in a webchat today - though looking at the boat on her, I wouldn't.

Comments

[chris]

As a seriously ugly lard arse, the idea of HMG offering me "Harvey Nicks benefit" seems quite attractive, but the fact remains that although I'm sure I'd be a squillionaire if I looked like the young Bogart, I earn in the 9th decile, so I'd have to disqualify myself.

What I've noticed is that the tendency for like to look after like extends unofficially much further than the recognisable "Communities" that get written about. I, for example, am a member in good standing of the International Brotherhood of Shortarses (5' 3"). Everybody who has ever offered me a job has been well below average height, and I have factored this observation into my interview technique with some success. Likewise, I have notice fatties surrounding themselves with fatties, redheads with redheads, etc. I'm sure the unfashionable looking are disadvantaged in the job market, but the brighter among us find strategies to get by.

Which leads to the point that the true correlation, as has been recognised for years, is between criminality and stupidity.

BTW, Casey passes muster as a jolie laide: it's her politics that let her down. Think what it would be like if most women looked like Cherie Blair. The species would go extinct in a generation.

[Robert Jubb]

It strikes me, without bothering to read the research - I'm lazy like that - that there are at least two possible explanations for differences in self-reported criminal activity between the beautiful people and appearance-challenged, neither of which necessarily imply a correlation between being ugly and a criminal. First, that being good-looking correlates with class - better fed, better clothed, and simple class prejudice. Second, that good-looking people are treated better by the rest of the world, and so are less likely to think, because of positive reinforcement and all that kind of thing, that they've done anything wrong.

[dearieme]

I have no criminal record, I'm tall, I am (well, was) intelligent; statistically therefore I'm beautiful. Yippee. But, alas,....

[Maynard Handley]

Daniel Nettle reports in his book the interesting fact that of the things you have substantial control over (ie ignoring things like health, marriage partner and job, where one is, to some extent, constrained by luck and the behavior of others) the single thing that seems to have the most durable impact on improving happiness is breast implants for women.

I say this not as a joke, but seriously. I have long felt that the mocking of plastic surgery is immature, and I really do think that an enlightened nation would allow it as part of the general socialized health scheme. Of course there are always issues of cost, and issues of serial abusers (Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan's in-again-out-again boobs), but a few weirdos should not shape the policy for society as a whole. Rather than a blanket dismissal of plastic surgery, I'd prefer to see a debate that attempted to put a value on the happiness (and wider social welfare if we believe this article) created by breast implants, botox,braces and so on, after which one can perform some sort of happiness maximization/currency unit and decide, OK, we'll allow 50 people in intensive care and pretty unlikely to recover to each die a day earlier, and with the case saved we'll perform 500 cosmetic surgery operations.

[Jonathan]

What does this say about people making dumb blonde jokes? - Is this what one calls post ironic...still trying to find an application of this term that is correct

[xj]

Ugly people are more likely to be criminal sociopaths?

Well, it explains Gordon Brown.

[Andrew McGuinness]

On what basis do you assume that ugly people's disadvantages are less in illegal than in legal business? I would suspect the reverse...