Of Crime & Criminals

To better understand the state of crime in our community, state and nation, I did some Googling.  I was surprised to see that crime is decreasing, not increasing. The numbers vary slightly from website to website, but the overall trend is consistent.

FL murder rate per 100K: ’72 – 12.7; ’85 – 11.4; ’95 – 7.3; ’05 – 5.0; ’06 – 6.2. US murder rate per 100K: ’25 – 8.3; ’45 – 5.7; ’75 – 9.9; ’85 – 8.4; ’95 – 8.7; ’04 – 5.9.  You can Google crime stats yourself to see the charts and graphs, but every site shows a consistent decline across the decades, with a slight bump up last year.  We can only guess if the bump up last year is the beginning of a different kind of trend.  Drug arrests are the exception with big increases in the number of arrests for drug offenses. For adults, the estimated number of drug abuse violations began at 322,300 in 1970 and increased, reaching 1,693,100 in 2006.

For all of the hand-wringing, things have been much worse, per capita.  Of course, that doesn’t make me feel any safer, just helps put it in perspective.  So why does it seem there is so much more crime?  More “capita” = more crime, another side-effect of growth.  The senseless nature of some murders – people beaten to death over an X Box; gunfire and death over a $24 pair of jeans; a Middleburg man killed and his daughter shot over a $35 debt; Jacksonville leading the state murder rate; an innocent 6-year old boy defiled and murdered by a “family” of molesters.  It goes on and on.

Seeing downward trends on charts and graphs is little consolation viewed through the lens of daily life here in Florida.  News reports yesterday (2-29-08) lamented the high rate of incarceration for society.  Some made the connection between high incarceration rates and decreasing crime rates.  Makes sense to me.  What are we supposed to do?  Keep letting the criminals serve short sentences, and then return them to the streets?  I consider myself a compassionate conservative, but I have no compassion for violent criminals.

The real solution starts way back in the home, and I certainly support efforts to prevent crime and criminals.  Education, 2-parent households, moral values, etc.  Big picture stuff that takes decades to work on.  In the meantime, harsh punishment is what I expect from the judicial system.