Why so Scared?

Rocket River · Jun 11, 2013

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...st-point-in-decades.-Why-America-is-safer-now

US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now.

The crime rate for serious crimes, including murder, rape, and assault, has dropped significantly since the early 1990s in part because of changes in technology and policing, experts say.

Some 1,500 New York Police Department graduates tossed their gloves in the air at the end of ceremonies in Madison Square Garden last month after six months of training at the police academy.

The last time the crime rate for serious crime – murder, rape, robbery, assault – fell to these levels, gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon and the average income for a working American was $5,807.

That was 1963.

In the past 20 years, for instance, the murder rate in the United States has dropped by almost half, from 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991 to 5.0 in 2009. Meanwhile, robberies were down 10 percent in 2010 from the year before and 8 percent in 2009.

The declines are not just a blip, say criminologists. Rather, they are the result of a host of changes that have fundamentally reversed the high-crime trends of the 1980s. And these changes have taken hold to such a degree that the drop in crime continued despite the recent recession.

Because the pattern "transcends cities and US regions, we can safely say crime is down," says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "We are indeed a safer nation than 20 years ago."

He and others give four main reasons for the decline:
Increased incarceration, including longer sentences, that keeps more criminals off the streets.
Improved law enforcement strategies, including advances in computer analysis and innovative technology.
The waning of the crack cocaine epidemic that soared from 1984 to 1990, which made cocaine cheaply available in cities across the US.
The graying of America characterized by the fastest-growing segment of the US population – baby boomers – passing the age of 50.

The data point to a persistent perception gap among Americans. Despite strong evidence of crime dropping over recent decades, the public sees the reverse. "Recent Gallup polls have found that citizens overwhelmingly feel crime is going up even though it is not," says Professor Fox. "This is because of the growth of crime shows and the way that TV spotlights the emotional. One case of a random, horrific shooting shown repeatedly on TV has more visceral effect than all the statistics printed in a newspaper."

In many police departments across the US, changes during the past decade or more are hard to overstate, say many law enforcement experts.

Technology has given detectives powerful new tools with which to analyze blood and DNA samples or other forensic evidence, for instance.

Computerized "hot spot" crime mapping has also helped police connect dots in ways that were more difficult before.

From pushpins to databases

"We used to put pins on a map to figure out what the patterns were and where to concentrate our limited resources," says Tod Burke, a former police officer in Maryland who now teaches criminal justice at Radford University in Virginia. "Now we have databases and computers. It's really gotten a lot more sophisticated."

Beyond technology, law enforcement personnel are much better educated and trained today than ever before, adds John Paitakes, professor of criminal justice at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. They've also benefited from leaders like William Bratton, who recast policing in Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles by applying the "broken window" theory posited by social scientist James Q. Wilson in 1982. The theory held that run-down and vandalized areas were more prone to serious crime than were areas kept in better order.
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Once you realize that everything is made to create fear and insecurity in order to sell ***** . . . . it all makes sense

Rocket River

cml750 · Jun 12, 2013

I wonder how concealed hand gun laws have impacted this especially when you look at places with very strict gun laws like Chicago, murder and crime in general are rampant?

Haymitch · Jun 12, 2013

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wQHfoz9Be7U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

FranchiseBlade · Jun 12, 2013

cml750 said: ↑

I wonder how concealed hand gun laws have impacted this especially when you look at places with very strict gun laws like Chicago, murder and crime in general are rampant?
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Chicago murder rate is as low as it's been since the 60's

Police have taken a renewed approach to suppressing gun violence since then, placing more cops on patrol in impact zones, Chicago Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy said in an interview with NBC Chicago at the beginning of May. The city saw a 42 percent drop in homicides between January and the end of April this year, officials said.
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http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...-chicago-readies-to-curb-summer-violence?lite

NotInMyHouse · Jun 12, 2013

FranchiseBlade said: ↑

Chicago murder rate is as low as it's been since the 60's

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...-chicago-readies-to-curb-summer-violence?lite
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Well, it's down recently from a quite a high in 2012.

Some 443 people had been shot dead in 2012. Sixty-five of those were 18 or younger.

“That’s the equivalent of a Newtown every four months,” Obama said, referencing the Connecticut school shooting that left 20 children dead.

.......

But while murders have tailed off in other big cities like New York, Chicago’s murder rate hit its highest mark last year since 2008.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chicago-struggles-combat-gun-violence-article-1.1271786

KingCheetah · Jun 12, 2013

The legalization of abortion.

rhadamanthus · Jun 13, 2013

KingCheetah said: ↑

The legalization of abortion.
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Highly likely. (Interesting aside: For those who have heard there is a "debate" about Levitt's claims in Freakonomics, here is an article by Levitt where he pretty much destroys the opposition.)

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