The end of the article has a couple of paragraphs that say we are actually doing pretty well as a society when you really look at the facts, and maybe we ought to focus more on the good than on the bad. I think there is some merit in that. But that isn't my point in bringing some of this information to you today. My point is to, first of all, give you some visibility of some of the myths about crime that some recent research that has been done very carefully and painstakingly has exposed. The reason I put it in quotes is because part of my point is that facts can be misconstrued and misused so as to distort what the truth is.
Facts can lie.
Even if the facts themselves are true, they can distort what the truth is. Apparently there is a new book out called The Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice, a small 1993 paperback written by criminologist Victor Kaplar, Gary Potter and Mark Bloomberg of different universities. The first two from Eastern Kentucky University, the last from Central Missouri State University. Listen to this. For example, as she is talking in the article about some of the hysteria that we've fallen into, she gives some illustrations about how we climbed on the band wagon based on facts of crime that was more damaging than anything else.