FALLING CRIME STATISTICS SHOULD NOT MAKE US LAX

Still another report has confirmed that crime is down in the United States,
but no one should suppose that crime is licked, that the police can go home
now and that we can start shutting down the prisons.

This report comes from a 2001 government survey based on interviews with
victims and concerns all violent crime but murder. The year-to-year
decline: 9 percent. A news account says the decline in violent crime since
1993 is 50 percent.

As cheer-worthy as that news is, it should be kept in mind that crime today
remains several times higher than it was in the 1950s. One writer notes
that the decline we've been seeing in the past decade would have to
continue for "another three decades" to get us back to those years when we
did not have to take all the fearful "precautions" we take today.

Among the reasons crime has escalated as much as it has over the past
half-century, another analyst has observed, is the widespread breaking up
of families and a decline in certain moral norms. These issues and some
other factors causing crime increases may be largely outside the range of
government action, the analyst is quoted as saying, but tough sentencing is
not. While some social scientists deny that the imprisonment of some 2
million people has been the decisive factor in the recent reduction of
crime, it cannot be denied that it has been an important factor; when they
are behind bars, these prisoners - mostly young men - cannot maim and kill
those outside.

Some changes in sentencing practices may well be due - especially for
non-violent crimes - but no vast overhaul is due. Neither is it time for
police to let up on the improved strategies they have developed over the
years or for the public to become lax in the tough-minded attitudes that
have been adopted. The tragedy of crime is immense in lives damaged, ruined
and lost. Government needs to do what it can to help.