Interesting Article

[Hoosier]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/14/imaginary_fiends/?page=1

TL;DR -- Crime is down to levels not seen since the '60, yet the public is convinced that crime has been going up.

[cebeu]

Percentages and statistics are a beautiful thing, eh? Toss-in data like population and actual violent crime metrics and…it just don’t matter though…it’s an ugly baby “feel-good stories” cannot overcome.

Admittedly, this is better commentary than the inverse trend but personally I only care about a few “statistics,” me and those I care about and choose to be responsible for. This down-trend “ain’t shit” if it’s you gettin’ the short-end of the math…and it is a big number hangin' over your [our] head.

Year 1960
Population 179,323,175
Violent 288,460
Murder 9,110

Year 2008
Population 304,059,724
Violent 1,382,012
Murder 16,272

SOURCE: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

[ronaldrwl]

Hmm, sounds to good to be true. There must be another side to the story.

[sniper7]

most people feel they see soo much crime because they watch the news, especially the local news which shows off every act of crime, or watch HLN and you see the bimbo nancy grace still talking about the baby killer that happened 2 years ago and re runs everything over and over and over.

when that is all you see of course you will feel like the world is crime ridden

[Hoosier]

There's a name for the psychological condition where humans think the past was better. It had something to do with (generally speaking) forgetting minor bad things and remembering minor good things.

The gap between reality and perception is bad though. I remember when I was a kid I could go roaming around, kids today can't even go down the street...

And people think crime is a huge problem are more likely to try and push stupid gun control laws. Because guns are the reason there's crime in Gary, Indiana right?

PS. Gas up your car well before you drive through Gary, you don't want to get off the freeway.

[XJ]

Big-city politicians would never manipulate how crimes are recorded in order to look good, right? The UCR is only as good as the raw data.