Crime Decline Conundrum
[From Governing through Crime: Crime Decline Conundrum]
Why is crime going up? or down? is a timeless issue and one that has many answers. In Chicago, Wesley Skogan has talked about how larger demographic trends are affecting crime in big cities and the role of gangs on Chicago’s crime rate.
Jonathon Simon over at Governing through Crime also adds his thoughts. Commenting on the latest drops in crime big cities, he speculates on the top three factors underlying the crime drops:
1. Bottoming out of the de-industrialization of American cities that began in 1946 and continued through the 1980s. Even if new economic engines of prosperity have not exactly re-emerged in many cities, the process of losing existing assets has run its course.
2. Demographic diversification of urban neighborhoods through immigration and in-migration of suburbanites fleeing unsustainable lifestyles.
3. Better trained and motivated police forces.
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