Why Crime is Down Politicians and the press have made much of the fact that crime rates are inching down - and indeed they are. The rate of violent crime declined every year from 1991 to 1996 and decreased by a total of 12.7 percent during that period. However, violent crime rates were still 300 percent higher than they were in 1960. President William Clinton likes to take credit for the recent decline, claiming that his initiative to spend federal money on a few thousand more police officers is what did the trick. Reality is not so kind.
Crime rates are down because of the huge increase in the number of bad guys who are in jail.
As the following graphs below show, we have never had so many people in prison, and incarceration rates, in terms of prisoners per 100,000 population are at unprecedented highs. As the graph for incarceration shows, America has traditionally had about 100 people in jail for every 100,000 citizens. In the decade of the 1960's there was a terrific increase in crime. And so, despite the surge in crime, prison sentences were reduced and incarceration rates actually went down during the decade. Current research suggests that every year of incarceration prevents 12 to 21 crimes.