Patterns in Crime (the start of a new collection)

You could also say it is a crime... that the natural dynamics of social change are not a direct focus of our awareness or the thinking of politicians. There have been declining core crime rates for at least 30 years, with dramatic eruptions of youth crime lasting several years.

Homocides by age - US national crime rate statistics... that no one seems to look at.

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go to > Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide trends in the U.S.

When the mayor says it is he who is the master of the crime rates, and everyone seems too dumbfounded to say anything, they're all not looking at the graph. We have had a steadily declining core crime rate since at least 1975, and two patterned eruptions of youth crime. I use the term 'eruption' because the shape of the two youth crime waves is of something growing until it subsides, with almost no period of leveling off, like a feaver that 'breaks', a frenzy of some kind. What caused them and where they went is something that has not been discussed very much because we have been ignorant of what was happening. I am not a sociologist or criminologist, but would venture to guess that they corresponded to youth culture self-delusions and moments of realization.

One of the other interesting, and troubling, things about this pattern is that teen crime was an insignificant part of the 1980 crime wave, but essentially trippled in the 1990's crime wave. Clearly it would be desirable to look at other statistics and periods of time, and to carefully think through what was happening to each segment of the population.

The right thing for government to do, say when it is noticed that the worst of the feaver is passed, is to congratulate those who are making the change and give them a hand.