U.S. CRIME RATES ARE ALSO DECLINING

THE EDITOR:

Re: 'Crime is down; we don't need more police,' (Nov. 25).

I want to thank criminologist John Anderson for bringing his
experience to the letters forum, particularly his support for the "dry
numerical data" rather than the vivid and misleading stories he says
are told by the police.

Crime is down, he says, so Canada shouldn't pursue the "failed
experiment" with stiffer sentencing that was done in the U.S. Well,
shall we take a look at that dry data?

According to the FBI, violent crime in the U.S. fell for the
third-straight year in 2009, continuing a decline that has seen the
murder rate cut in half since 1990. The homicide rate in New York is
the lowest since figures were first kept in the 1960s.

Also last year, property crime fell 4.6%, vehicle theft by 17.1% and
burglary by 1.3%. And this is during a recession in which economic
hardship is supposed to increase criminal activity.

So, how do we reconcile Mr. Anderson's insistence that we look at the
data, with his completely backward description of crime in the U.S.?

Probably the same way we reconcile his insistence that Canada doesn't
need more prison capacity even as the drug trade became BC's
second-largest industry, Vancouver emerged as an international hub for
money laundering and a proliferation of gangs led The Economist
magazine to state that little old Vancouver has the highest
concentration of gangs in the world.

Craig Brett,

Qualicum Beach