Rising Crime In America

The United States is currently the safest it has ever been, with the rates of serious crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, and assault being the lowest they have ever been in decades. In fact, violent crime rates have not been as low as there are now since 1963, according to an article from The Christian Science Monitor titled “US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now.” The murder rate has dropped approximately fifty percent over the past twenty years from 9.8 murders per 100,000 people in 1991 to just 5 per 100,000 in 2009, while robbery rates have decreased by ten percent. (Wood, 2012). Despite the countless concrete evidence and statistics that reveal that crime is in fact declining, much of the population tends

New crime fighting and reducing strategies have been developed, and police are better trained and educated now than ever before. Another article from The Christian Science Monitor titled, “US crime rate is down: six key reasons,” highlights some of the new programs and rules that have been put into place and enforced by law in an effort to reduce crime. For example, policing has become more proactive because of the use of surveillance. The enforcement of video surveillance in almost all public places, as well as the use of police dashboard cameras has made it much harder for individuals to commit crimes due to the likelihood of being photographed and filmed. Law enforcement has also strived to be very active in local communities and to stay involved with keeping youth out of trouble by working with after school community outreach programs and even gang intervention programs. Also, by focusing on combating smaller crimes in local communities, police are in return preventing larger scale crimes (Haq,

There has been a huge increase in the amount of prisons built in the United States over recent decades, and a continually growing number of incarcerated criminals. This has led to less criminals being out on the street, and in return less violent crimes have been committed (Haq, 2010). While more criminals being in prison has helped decrease crime rates, there has also been several negative effects. An article from the American Legislative Exchange Council tiled “Prison Overcrowding Threatens Public Safety and State Budgets” discusses some of the downfalls of the United States prison systems. For example, many prisons are becoming overcrowded, and the constant need for more prison space and security is becoming a major financial issue (Williams,