crime in the US peaked in the late-1980s and early 1990s at the peak of the crack epidemic. i think the murder rate in New York was at it's peak in 1981.
much of the violence in the US that grew in the 1970s and 1980s came from the riots of the late 1960s, at least in part. it's also far more complex than that.
but, yes, from my understanding, violent crime in the US is much lower now than it was 20 years ago.
just a quick look at my city:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Washington,_D.C.
of note: violent crime incidents in 1995: 2,661.4; in 2008: 1,437.7, a decrease of 46%.
These statistics are not simply a representation of a lower crime trend from the high base of the 1960s as financeguy suggested.
Crime in the US, between the end of the red scare/Prohibition(early 30s) and the early 1960s was EXTREMELY LOW. It was the post war boom, the immigration panics and riots, the bank runs, moral panics, mass violent strikes, etc were all well in the past.
What happened?
Well, statistically, males between 18 and 25 commit the majority of the crimes in most societies, especially so in the United States.
Well, we had the baby boom start in the late 40s and go through to the mid 60s. By the time we get to the mid 60s, the first of the baby boom born immediately after the war reached that 18-25 age group, the group that is probably 85% law abiding compared to say, 99% for every other age group.
The more 18-25 yr old males in the population, the percentage of screwballs becomes a much greater minority than usual and crime increases. Had nothing to do with the Warren court or the Civil Rights movement as widely suggested.
The maturing of the Baby boom continued obviously in the 1970s, and when combined with alcoholism and heroin abuse that became common in this time period, we had the first of the "twin peaks" in violent crime around 1973. The other peak was of course what Irvine mentioned, the crack epidemic of the mid 80s to early 90s.
Look up any major city, you will see murder rates peaked twice- once around 1972-75 and again around 1989-1992.
Crime has dropped since then as an overall trend in the United States, with the biggest and most drastic reductions being violent crime.
I think the reason why people perceive us to be so much more violent today is 2 fold:
1.)The media- they're everywhere, 24/7 and they know people love these kind of stories. Look at the Natalee Holloway thread, you hear more and more about these cases. It is easy to forget with all the media attention on this case(and rightfully so, not arguing against covering it) that this story is as rare as it is appealing. Most murders- the hip hop thug icing, the mob rub out, the homeless hooker strangled by a client, never even make the news and people do not care very much because they do not fear this kind of crime. It has nothing to do with them and is unlikely to unless they get in with the wrong crowd.
Random violent crimes, as rare as they are, scare the hell out of us because they go against the trend and could happen to any of us. I went to school in Burlington, Vermont. Back in 2006, a girl I had met a few times,(she was an acquaintance of my roomate)who attended the University of Vermont was raped and strangled by a stranger. She had been out in Burlington, probably the safest place in the US with a population over 50,000, with friends and separated from them to try and meet up with another friend. When her phone died, she borrowed a guy's phone to call and tell her friends she was going back to campus. That was the last anyone heard of her, and the last anyone saw of her was on a jewelry store surveillance camera, walking up the sidewalk with the guy who lent her the phone. He killed her. Only 2 weeks after I first met her, I was SHOCKED BEYOND BELIEF. From my brief experience, and countless stories of those who knew her better, this horrible crime could not have happened to a nicer, more caring person:
Murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It took a week to find her body and in that week, the entire area was in PANIC, there were FBI cars everywhere, constant news reports, all the handicap buttons to open doors from the outside at my school were removed, etc.
So this huge diversion off topic serves to make a point. When we see the sheer random brutality of a crime over and over again on the news, we think it is more widespread than it actually is. In reality, I would bet these kind of random murders, local scumbag rapes and kills affluent white college student, were about as common in the 60, 70s, 80s and 90s as they are today.
2.)People are confusing boldness or brutality with numbers.
I have no statistics here, but it seems that people are becoming a bit more twisted in how they commit crimes and where they commit crimes. Take guns in schools. Gangs are now shooting rivals at school where they used to do it 10 blocks away 2 hours after school ended. Is it any different? No. It just gets more attention because school is allegedly safe.
Chicago's recent troubles are a great example of this. The place was a killing field in the mid 70s and late 80s/early 90s, had almost 1000 murders a couple of those years! They have had nowhere near that since then, but the violence has moved into schools and on school property, and the perps are getting bolder, so people think that means it is happening in greater numbers.
As for the sick and twisted part, it seems we have more of the guy who kills someone then cuts them up with a chainsaw for fun, or cuts their testicles off and sticks them in their family's mail box, etc today than we did before. That shocks us, and rightfully so, but it does not mean the crime is more widespread.
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All of this is to say nothing of the fact that before the push for the Violence Against Women Act in the early 1990s, crimes like domestic violence, marital rape, date rape and even boyfriend/girlfriend in college rape were widespread and ignored at best and tolerated at worst. Women have been empowered to speak out since then, felt it was ok, that it wasn't their fault, etc, and these kind of crimes have dropped dramatically.
People think we were so safe in the 50s, well the victims of the husband who beat the shit out of his wife when he came home drunk and the 30 yr old attorney who raped the college co-ed he was seeing on the side would certainly disagree.
I don't care what your politics are, get Vice President Biden's book at the library or just walk into the book store and leaf through it(don't buy it).
Find the part where he talks about the Violence Against Women Act that he and Orrin Hatch(R-UT) wrote and fought for. It will open your eyes as it did mine. I took a lot of criminal justice courses and my best friend's Dad is a former large suburb with big city problems Police Chief and I did not know the half of how extensive this problem was!
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Long story short, media and the increasingly twisted nature of individual crimes and boldness of some perps has made a declining raw number trend look like it is going through the roof.
As always, U2387 is not concise but hopes he made some sense!
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Violence as entertainment is being marketed harder than ever, and I'm certainly not suggesting that most of it be censored. But maybe it sets off some of these mental cases that society has always had.
