U$A
Juvenile crime is down yet again
Rick Nevin writes in with the latest data on juvenile arrests. It's pretty spectacular:
I don't know that I agree with Rick's trendlines—I doubt that juvenile crime is going to hit zero anytime soon—but his basic idea is sound. And it's remarkable that even as lead poisoning has flattened out, teen crime rates continue to plummet:
- Since 1990, the property crime rate among Black juveniles has gone down 90% and the violent crime rate has gone down 80%.
- Among all juveniles, the property crime rate has gone down 90% and the violent crime rate has gone down 75%.
The crazy thing about all this is that if you judge by the squawkings of police chiefs and elected officials, you'd think America was still trapped in the middle of a massive crime wave. But it ain't so. The numbers go up and down a bit from year to year and place to place, and the pandemic has obviously had an effect recently, but generally speaking kids just aren't involved in much crime these days. At the same time, 20-somethings are following right along. Their numbers will be similar to that for teens within a few more years.
And don't forget that we're at the start of the decade that will also see a reduction in violence in the Middle East. I'm dead serious about that.
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