Crime

After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early-1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1990. Case in point New York City. In the 50's the murder rate was 6 per 100,000 population and it started to rise reaching a peak of 30 per 100,000. It then started to decline down to 6 per 100,000 in 2020. The reasons are not always clear but starting in the 90's crime started down. One reason was a different type of policing. Each day computers allowed the police to see where all the crimes occurred yesterday and the police were moved to that area. Another change was called broken glass policing. This mean that small crimes were investigated and criminals were caught and punished. The theory was that if you stop small crimes you will stop big crimes. The 1994 crime bill caused more criminals to be sent to jail and the jails filled up with many drug crimes. The last two years crime has gone up and the reason is that criminals are no longer sent to jail. Most crimes are committed by career criminals meaning criminals who have a record of crime. Experts say that if these career types were put in jail much of the increase would disappear.