Social Indicators: Crime (Part 2 of 2)

[Continued from Social Indicators: Crime (Part 1 of 2)

The Columbine High School tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 has come to symbolize a culture of pervasive youth violence. There is no question that the Columbine episode was well beyond the ordinary expression of youth violence, but was it truly symbolic of trends in youth culture?

Historical statistics about youth violence are often hard to access and assess. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has published data on school violence and crime dating from the 1992-1993 school year. Here is a summary of their findings concerning youth homicides and suicides:

The number of homicides and suicides at school has remained constant over the last decade. Homicides away from school have dropped dramatically, and suicides away from school have declined at a less rapid rate. This has occurred during a time of growth in the student population. Therefore, the homicide and suicide rates are actually falling.

The overall violent crime (victimization) rate has dropped from 96 to 40 per 1,000 since 1993, and the theft crime rate has fallen from 59 to 24 per 1,000. NCES estimates that juvenile crime victimization is at its lowest since the early 1970s. There is no evidence of a youth crime epidemic.

We are in one of the least violent and crime-prone eras in over thirty years, and the rates appear to be on a downward trend. Youth violence, which had surged in the early 1990s, appears to have been driven partly by a drug sub-culture and not by widespread violent youth behavior. The highest levels of crime and violence were twenty-five years ago, as evidenced by the following data:

Conclusions

• Violent crime, after declining from at least a fifty-year high in 1981, falling in the early 1980s, and then rising again through the early 1990s, has been in a steady, significant decline since 1994.
• Property crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s.
• Violent crime is less than half as frequent as its 1981 high.
• Property crime is less than one-third as frequent as its 1975 high.
• After peaking in the early 1990s, juvenile crime has rapidly declined.
• There is no evidence of a widespread youth culture of violence.

Crime rates suggest an improving quality of life.

Comments

[will spotts]

I'm curious what has been happening externally that corresponds to these trends.

You mention drug related incidents -- and that is certainly one factor.

Also, I hesitate to venture in this direction, but the perception of school violence is fed by news coverage. School violence is old news in many sectors -- however, Columbine was, first, a major incident, and second, a predominantly white, upper middle class school.

[Michael Kruse]

Media combined with class and ethnicity. I think you are right about its effect on perception.