Homicides went up in 2020 and 2021 and are now rapidly coming back down. Violent crime nationwide hasn't increased. But the perception of a crime wave still colors U.S. politics.
The beginning of the drop in crime coincided with the “Broken Window” model of policing that new York and other large cities adopted. They like to claim credit.
But it also dropped in small towns that didn’t have the same trendy police tactics.
The best explanation I’ve seen is that abortion became protected, so miserable women weren’t forced to give birth in terrible conditions, and subsequently there weren’t as many impoverished, abused children that turned to crime.
Guess we’ll find out in a few years as the unwanted pregnancies start to tick up and economic mobility continues to stagnate.
In Criminal Justice isolating variables is basically impossible in ‘field’ conditions. So many factors contribute to criminality that it’s hard to connect any one policy change to an outcome firmly. Plus there’s also the issue that different changes are being implemented simultaneously.
The beginning of the drop in crime coincided with the “Broken Window” model of policing that new York and other large cities adopted. They like to claim credit.
But it also dropped in small towns that didn’t have the same trendy police tactics.
The best explanation I’ve seen is that abortion became protected, so miserable women weren’t forced to give birth in terrible conditions, and subsequently there weren’t as many impoverished, abused children that turned to crime.
Guess we’ll find out in a few years as the unwanted pregnancies start to tick up and economic mobility continues to stagnate.
There is also another theory about the dropoff being caused by reduction of lead in environments.
In Criminal Justice isolating variables is basically impossible in ‘field’ conditions. So many factors contribute to criminality that it’s hard to connect any one policy change to an outcome firmly. Plus there’s also the issue that different changes are being implemented simultaneously.
It’s because homicides, as most other crimes, went through the roof during covid and are now returning to pre covid levels.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/05/15/northeastern-university-researchers-find-little-evidence-for-broken-windows-theory-say-neighborhood-disorder-doesnt-cause-crime/