Crime in the U.S. is down substantially from 2008 according to the FBI’s preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report. Violent crime decreased 5.5%; property crime 4.9%; forcible rape 3.1%, and arson offenses 10.4%. If the data holds up, it would be the third straight year of crime decreases, as well as a sharply accelerating rate of decline. The New York Times story suggests the decline is noteworthy in the face of economic turmoil and high unemployment,but Contentions notes that crime rates also fell during the Great Depression:
As David Rubinstein of the University of Illinois has pointed out, if you chart homicide beginning in 1900, its rates began to rise in 1905, continued through the prosperous 20s, and crested in 1933. They began to decline in 1934, as the Great Depression began to deepen. And between 1933 and 1940, the murder rate dropped by nearly 40 percent, while property crimes revealed a similar pattern. One possible explanation is that times of crisis, including economic crisis, create greater social cohesion.
Whatever the explanation, the preliminary data are a cause for preliminary celebration.
Here is the FBI press release. Here is the link to the preliminary report.
