"The gist of the article is that previous studies of homicide rates in the U.S. in the early twentieth century, which tend to claim that there was a surge in homicides in that time, are wrong for a number of reasons, specifically improving accuracy in reporting, and changes in the composition of the registration area. Within ‘comparable areas’ the homicide rate had not increased notably, but as the registration area grew it took in states with ‘appreciably’ higher homicide rates…. At least some of the early increase in violence was an artifact of policing practices, which changed from underreporting homicides to ‘over charging’ offenses by ‘one or two degrees’…in Philadelphia much of the apparent increase was caused by a transitory policy of counting deaths by automobile accident as homicides…in addition, a ‘dark figure’ of unreported murders decreased greatly. As a result, researchers now disagree about the existence of a ‘homicidal crime wave.’" - Jess Nevins (Jan 2012) and Springer (Feb 1995)
Incarceration
"So, between ’75 and ’91, it’s almost certain that the increase in crime had to play at least some significant role in increasing the prison population. The scale of the crime boom that took place was dramatic: From 1960 to 1991, violent crime rose by 400 percent, and property crime rose by 200 percent." - Slate (Feb, 2015)
"Drug war prisoners make up only about one-fourth of an all-time high 2,268,000 people behind bars in the US, up 1.9% from 2003. But while the imprisonment juggernaut continues to roll along, there are faint signs that its growth is slowing. Last year's 1.9% increase in prison and jail population was lower than the year before (2.0%) and lower than the 3.2% average annual growth rate for the past decade. Of the nearly 2.2 million people behind bars last year, 50.5% were serving time for violent crime. That means that more than 1.1 million people were imprisoned for nonviolent offenses, mainly property and drug crimes." - Stop the Drug War (Oct 2005)
"After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period." - Wikipedia
"Recently, scholars have added yet another explanation: Immigration – although not in the way that some people might expect. Cities and neighborhoods that have received the largest influx of immigrants (including Mexican immigrants) have had – despite popular stereotypes to the contrary – the largest drops in criminal violence. (See, for example here and here. Thus, increased immigration may explain part of the crime drop since 1990." - The Public Intellectual (May 2011)
"In a wider view, perhaps the more puzzling part of the story is the rapid upswing in violence from around 1960 to 1990 (see the first graph above)." - The Public Intellectual (May 2011)
Recidivism
"Among nearly 300,000 prisoners released in 15 States in 1994, 67.5% were
"Japan's gun policies are notoriously strict. Civilians cannot possess handguns, automatic assault weapons, semi-automatic assault weapons, military rifles, or machine guns. Japanese civilians aren't even allowed to own swords." - Business Insider (Jan 2013)
"Over the past decade, Japan's image as one of the "safest countries in the world" has undergone a disturbing transformation and downgrading. The once-marginal crime rate has jumped an astronomical 150%." - Asia Times (August 2004)
"How many, indeed? There have been 62 public shootings in the last 30 years, according to an article in Mother Jones. Before Newtown there had been six mass shootings this year alone. We now have them more often than we have presidential elections, more often than we have the Olympics and the Grammy awards."
"The public shootings began in the 1980s. There were two gun massacres in the two decades before Ronald Reagan took office, one in 1966 and one a decade later. There were, by some estimates, more than 30 mass killings during his time in office alone."
"There were mass shooting prior to this, but they were mostly rational acts of violence, not random rage murders. On February 14, 1929, for instance, seven men were machine gunned to death in Chicago. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, while horrific, was a very a simple case of mobsters murdering rivals during Prohibition in order to retaliate for an earlier attempt to control the city’s bootlegging business." - Washington Monthly (Dec 2012)
"Counting only random mass murders with at least two casualties, Lankford found that 179 such crimes occurred between 1966 and 2010, an average rate of 3.97 per year. From 1966 to 1980, there were 20 mass killings for a rate of 0.75 per year, but in the 1980s the rate doubled to 1.8 per year, tripled in the 1990s to 5.4, and went up 160% in the 2000s to 8.7 per year. The rate could easily reach 10 per year during the present decade. If one counts attempted mass murders, the rate is about 26 per year." - AllGov (Dec 2012)
