SOCIETAL CHANGES SAID TO CAUSE U.S. CRIME DROPS

CHICAGO - The drop in crime in the United States for which
President Clinton has taken credit is due more to long-term societal
changes than government anti-crime policy, according to a study
released Sunday.

One factor, the report said, is an improved economy which may have
caused some would-be criminals to seek legitimate employment and which
may also have led to a better public morale with greater confidence in
the government and other institutions.

``Another major factor here is the combined aging and cultural
dominance of the baby boomers, now entering their 40s and 50s,'' said
Darrell Steffenmeier, a professor of sociology at Penn State University.

``These now make up 30 percent of the population, and they head nearly
four in 10 households,'' he added. ``This enormous, accumulating age
shift has now reached the threshold of 'critical mass' needed to
trigger change in our cultural values and collective conscience,'' he
added in a report released at the annual meeting of the American
Sociological Association.

This in turn has led to a ``greater civility'' and less emphasis on
materialism, he said.

``President Clinton in his 1998 State of the Union address and
elsewhere, has taken credit for the crime reduction,'' Steffenmeier
said. ``To some degree he is justified since, under his watch, the
government has funded the hiring of more police officers and put a
greater emphasis on community-based crime prevention
initiatives.''

But, he said, organic changes such as the steady economy have had a
greater influence.

``Also over the past decade, media and citizen concerns about the
'crime problem' have fueled an unprecedented number of national
crime-fighting initiatives,'' he added.

Steffenmeier also reported that an analysis of government crime
statistics shows the number of U.S. burglaries declining by a third
between 1980 and 1998.

Burglary may have become less attractive, he suggested, because there
is more money in drug dealing, which requires less skill and agility.

At the same time low retail prices for such easily stolen items as TV
sets, VCRs and cameras has reduced their value on the street to such a
point that they are not worth bothering with, he said.