I have an ongoing argument going with my mother. She insists that crime wasn’t as bad when she was younger (and most likely was even better before her time) and that “things” are getting worse. I argue that it isn’t. People are just as they have always been; they lie, cheat, steal, and kill. It is also our nature to put a glittery varnish on the past and make it seem a whole lot better than it really was.
I found proof though. (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm) Crime rates from 1960 to 2009, the actual numbers and the rate per 100,000 people in the US. I looked at murder rates because murders don’t usually go unreported; a body is found and it is investigated. Other crimes, a victim may or may not report it. Also you have the issue of how time has changed what is considered a crime. Rape is a prime example of this. Date rape wouldn’t have been a consideration earlier on; if you knew the man who attacked you then what did you do to lead him on? There was more of a stigma; “good girls” didn’t even get into situations where they could be raped, so what kind of girl are you if you have it happen to you?
What I saw regarding murder was interesting. True, the sheer volume of murders in 2009 was higher than any year before 1970, although even by strictly the recorded number of murders it was higher from 1970 and on, but when you take into account the difference in population size and look at the rate per 100,000 people there are actually only 4 years that have a lower murder rate. Only from 1961-64 was the murder rate lower than it was in 2009. But if the country is on a runaway train of crime and going to hell in a hand basket then how is this possible?
Even in the 1960’s there were plenty of fairly rural areas, the kind of places that had newspapers that would report when a resident had someone from the next town over visit for the afternoon (and yes, in my family research I’ve seen things like this in the news.) Nothing much happened, and realistically when something bad happened no one wanted to really talk about it. Gossiping over the fence about it was OK, but talking openly about how Mr. Smith gets drunk and beats his wife; well that’s just not nice conversation. People are more open now so that has changed things some.
My argument is the media and how quickly information is shared now. You don’t have to wait for information to filter its way to you, you can go online and look up the local news in Phoenix, AZ or Charlotte, NC if you so desire. Consider the case of Casey Anthony, now pretty much the whole country considers her guilty of killing her daughter (and talks about what a shame it is), but in 1960 would the whole country had even heard about it? Realistically, it might not have caught the attention of anyone except for those that live in that area.
The world has gotten smaller, information wise, and the media is a business. News is about ratings, if the ratings aren’t good then they can’t make money, so they have to select the most sensational stories. A family of four gets massacred, that will get attention even if it happened on the other side of the country. So we hear about a lot more of the bad because it gets attention, yet it also gives the feeling that horrible things are now happening all the time. The reality is that horrible things have always happened, but the whole country usually wasn’t aware of them. I read a story about a man in Medina that slaughtered his whole family (I believe with an ax in a rather grizzly manner) and most of the country never heard about it. It happened before 1900, but now that would be a story on every 24 hour news network.
