CRIME RATE STILL GOING DOWN

Law Enforcement Efforts Paying Off

Crime rates in America, which for demographic, economic and other reasons
were supposed to either level off or bounce back up in 2002, have surprised
the sociologists making the predictions. The fact is they are down again,
according to an Associated Press account of a Justice Department report.
They haven't been this low since the keeping of national records on property
and violent crimes began in 1973, and here is the further news that ought to
bring cheer: The decline over the past 10 years has been 50 percent.

The reason? Experts differ, but what seems clear in the welter of
speculation and counterspeculation is that law enforcement has
improved in both prevention and the capture of lawbreakers, and that
sending record numbers of people to prison for lengthy sentences has
been effective. After all, if you are behind bars, you are not on the
street committing dozens of crimes a year.

It's hardly a matter that warms the heart that so many Americans --
mostly young men -- have been imprisoned, and there should be
continued efforts to find substitute means of dealing with the least
dangerous lawbreakers and of keeping them from breaking the law in the
first place. An extra incentive in this cause is money. Prisons are
expensive, and many states now have near-hopeless budgets.

Obviously, though, states should be careful about taking shortcuts; it
should not be assumed that crime cannot rise again, that crime itself
does not have huge costs, that there is no current effort to
distinguish between those criminals who should and should not be sent
to prison or that the convicts have no responsibility for their fate.
If crime rates do not head up again, prison populations eventually
will decline.

In the meantime, the fact that Americans responded to a rise in crime
with efforts that have been beating it back should give us confidence
in our capacity to deal with social issues, especially when published
reports tell us that many European nations have been experiencing a
crime increase during the same period crime here has been declining.