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Originally appeared in Newsletter
Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 2000
Rosy assessments of the nation's declining crime
rate wrongly focus on short-term drops from
crime peaks early in the decade and ignore the
overall rise of violence since the 1960s, according to a new
report. The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention
of Violence found that violent crime reported to the FBI,
in major cities, has risen by 40 percent since 1969. The new
study (a 30-year update of the landmark study by the Commission),
which was formally released last week by the Milton S.
Eisenhower Foundation, is intended as a reminder that the
U.S. still suffers from a historically high level of violence.
Reports that crime and violence have declined are misleading
as they are based on comparisons to unusually high levels of
violence that prevailed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"There is no attempt here to be doomsayers or naysayers and
say nothing good has happened in the last few years. But the
intent is to gain perspective by looking back," says Elliot
Currie, one of several authors of the original report who also
participated in the update. The study's strength, its authors say
-- lies in the perspective of looking at crime statistics over
decades, rather than years -- is necessary to understand public
safety and avoid simplistic conclusions about declines in
crime. The study cites programs and strategies that have
proven to be good public policy in approaches to crime
prevention.
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