HOW TO FIGHT CRIME

JUST WHEN THE FBI's data were suggesting that the dramatic decrease in
crime during the past few years might be slowing, the Justice Department
released new data suggesting the opposite. The FBI's figures and these
latest numbers measure somewhat different things, so it's possible that
both are correct -- that the drop-off in certain crimes may be leveling off
while other types of crime are still falling. Yet the new data also raise
the attractive possibility that overall crime rates continue to diminish.
According to the new figures, violent crime -- excluding murder --
decreased by 15 percent last year and property crime by 10 percent. These
latest declines brought the crime rate nationally to its lowest level since
the survey began in 1973. Since 1993 violent crime has declined an
astonishing 44 percent.

Policymakers of various stripes are eager to take credit. Advocates of
tough sentencing point to long-term incarceration of many criminals. Sen.
Joseph Biden (D-Del.) responded to the new figures by calling on the Bush
administration not to cut the Community Oriented Policing Program, which
has helped hire tens of thousands of new police officers.

The decline, however, resists simple explanations and certainly cannot be
attributed to any single policy choice. Tougher sentencing for violent
crimes (but not longer sentences for nonviolent crimes) probably has
helped. Having more police probably has helped too. But neither can account
for the magnitude of the decline. For that, one has to look also to the
waning of the crack epidemic, the strong economy and demographic shifts. As
these factors change again, crime rates will too.

Many policies that might keep crime rates low have yet to be tried. As long
as guns are pervasive, the possibility of large upticks in violence is
magnified. Underinvestment in drug treatment and crime prevention requires
overinvestment in prisons, which are more expensive as well as less humane.
And the paucity of prison education may produce a crime wave as
unprecedented numbers of prisoners are released. If crime can drop 15
percent in a year, it can rise that quickly too.