re: Interesting: murder rates are down from 1970 due to medical advances ,not fewer attempts

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The problem with this argument is that all manner of violent, property, and sexual crimes are down across the board from their 70s/80s heyday.

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Property crime is also benefitting from tech advancements. Homes are now outfitted with alarms, surveillance cameras, etc and why would you risk a burglary sentence and break into a house to steal a TV when you can get one at Wal-Mart for $300? Same with cars. It's a lot harder to steal a car - they all have monitoring systems built in plus anti-theft mechanisms. You can't steal a car stereo anymore either.

Also, people just don't report petty crime anymore. Why deal with the hassle or increase in insurance rates. My grandfather was a homicide detective back in the 40s-60s. He was a packrat and when he died I went through all of his old stuff. It was crazy how much different law enforcement was back then. The Detective Bureau, of which he was a part, had a "stolen bike division" and there were three detectives who worked there full time working only stolen bike cases. Can you imagine going to the police today to report a stolen bike and having a detective in a suit assigned to work the case and track down the perp?

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This suggests that our cities are not safer than they were in the 70s and 80s, it’s just you have better medical tech

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Don't forget cell phones and the ability to call for help immediately from anywhere.

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Why were there so many murders in the 70s ?

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You missed the point, I'm going off the OP.

A gunshot used to be a death sentence, which is not the case today.

But since you asked, crime was more limited to specific areas in the 1970s, my hood never saw a cop car.

Except there are also studies done on VIOLENT CRIMES that also show they are down, and violent crimes includes all: murder, attempted murder, burglary, rape, etc. So medical advancements wouldn’t matter

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I'm starting to warm up to a combination of the post-WW2 family and lead gas being the cause for the spike.

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I haven’t heard this theory

This has been known for quite some time. 20 years of the GWOT advanced trauma medicine by a lot.

I guess it comes down to stats vs experience

1995 in NYC just “feels” safer to people than 2025 nyc

Things like mass looting are not considered violent crimes.


But imo they are because it involves destruction of property and people getting violent during an attempt to stop them.



Without any raw data. I would assume we have seen an increase in mass looting since 2020. Which then doesn't go into your violent crime stats.


And in California's case, not even a felony.

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Important Point:
This is why crime stats often don’t match public perception. Mass looting can:

Cause huge damage

Scare communities

Lead to business closures

Undermine trust in law enforcement

…but still not push up the official violent crime rate

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And just because the rates of homicides went down doesn’t mean the total number of homicides went down.


But let’s take the looting. Any normal person that flips on the tv and sees people in masks smashing up storefronts, will wonder why these people are being violent.


But statistics will say, the store was closed so there were no customers and employees, so there was no violence.

Maybe someone knows the answer to this because I don’t…

10 people go into a cvs and start pulling stuff off the shelves and into their black plastic bags, but none of them are arrested. Does this count as 0 robberies, 1 robbery or 10 robberies?

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1995 in NYC just “feels” safer to people than 2025 nyc

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REALLY bad example