Crime: the Stats’ Story

By now you probably know that the murder rates in Los Angeles and the rest of the nation have dropped to the lowest levels in more than 20 years. The experts have thrown in every plausible reason for the change, from a better economy to more prisons.

The focus has been on how wonderfully steep the trail down the mountain has been. But what made the mountain so high in the first place? Why did urban homicide rates begin to rise so unexpectedly in many major cities, practically all in the same year? And what kept the carnage in such high gear that many cities recorded their highest murder tolls ever in a tight, four-year window starting around 1988?

None of this was supposed to happen. Crime experts, in the early and middle 1980s, were generally united in predicting that crime would fall through the rest of the decade. But four unpredicted events merged in rapid fashion: the easy availability of sophisticated semiautomatic handguns and even more powerful weaponry; stagnant or depressed urban economies that offered scant hopes for the future; the growth of more violent street gangs. The fourth ingredient was crack cocaine. It was cheap to produce and buy. It offered an intense and short-lived high, and addicts were willing to do anything to get it. In other words, it was a real moneymaker and a social disaster.

The phenomenon was most evident in Washington. Crack cocaine arrived in the nation’s capital in 1986. Tremendous criminal firepower was massed on the streets. By 1989, Washington had been the murder capital of the United States for two straight years, with the most homicides per capita.

The pattern was slower to emerge in Los Angeles, but it was there, hidden in the beginnings of a sharp rise in gang-related killings in 1985. It came even as homicides overall hit a 10-year low in 1988. By the close of 1992, a city racked by gang violence recorded its highest murder toll ever. That’s how the mountain got so high.

What factors, other than those mentioned earlier, stopped the deadly climb? A war of attrition on the streets, with gang rivals killing one another; the nonnegotiable prison penalty for possessing even a small amount of crack cocaine--eight years. But most Americans remained largely clueless about all this.

Why? What matters most is what happens near home. It’s a safe bet that, despite the decline in national crime statistics, few in west Santa Monica are feeling safer these days. A spate of killings within a few weeks, all within a few city blocks, took care of that.

How often do we get crime information presented with proper perspective? Not often enough. Americans are bludgeoned with news reports on the latest crime in their city. Just how many telecasts of police freeway chases do we need to see?

Information on crime must be viewed in context. Without that framework, a workable neighborhood might appear to be a battlefield instead. The crime rates are down; that’s a fact to be realized and to be celebrated. Look not only at the nightly news but at the statistics. They have a story to tell.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Belief Vs. Reality

Violent crime in the United States has hit a 24--year low, but a national Louis Harris telephone poll in April found that most respondents believed violent crime was still increasing.

Increasing a lot: 44%

Increasing a little: 24%

Decreasing a little: 16%

Decreasing a lot: 1%

Not changing: 14%