This might be purely anecdotal, but it feels that everyone collectively considers 1940-1970s America "safer" than the America millenians have grown up in. I've heard stories from both urban and rural settings that talk of a time where parents let children walk wherever they want.
I was just wondering if there is any statistical or historic accuracy to this belief. It seems hard to believe; there have obviously been criminals, rapists, pedifiles, etc since the beginning of time. And I can only imagine that prevention was even tougher with less advanced technology and more prevalent discrimination. Any insight would be appreciate, thanks !
There is an absolutely phenomenal resource online that allows you to search trial transcripts from the Old Bailey court house in London.
The website allows you to read trial transcripts from 1674-1913 for any crime.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/forms/formMain.jsp
If you read through some of the trials you'll very quickly realise that we have always been violent. In fact the first thing to hit you will be how normal violence was back then - it was considered as just another tool to use to sort out disagreements and differences.
A lot of them were caused by drink, just the same as today. A lot caused by infidelity and jealousy, just like today.
People don't change, their vices don't change and their tempers don't change.
Here's a trial from 1777 that honestly could have come from today. Men drinking in a pub, an argument, a fight and a death.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17770514-28-off126&div=t17770514-28#highlight
The answer is unequivocally "no." It was not safer in the 1940s - 70s than it is now. The seminal work on this is Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature. There, Pinker argues convincingly that by almost every metric, violence has fallen and continues to fall. We live in the most peaceful time in our existence. In the US, there was a dramatic increase in the 80s and 90s in violent crime and people were predicting a new crime wave, but circa 1994 that declined and has continued to decline. There are a number of theories as to why the crime wave didn't materialize - policing; higher incarceration rates; abortion (no kidding - see Dubner / Levitt - Freakenomics) or even lead abatement (Kevin Drum).
Pinker has his detractors. He and Nassim Taleb have been debating it. However, that argument is not principally about whether we live in a safer time w/r/t murder and violent crime; it's more about war. Pinker argues that the time since wwii ended has been more peaceful with regard to great-power wars than any other time since the Pax Romana. Taleb argues that Pinker is misusing data, and the absence of wars could well be a statistical aberration. Pinker responds that Taleb is wrong.
This depends on a lot of variables, not the least of which is "for whom?". It certainly was not better for African-Americans, who were subject to unbelievable violence on the part of the white community, including law enforcement, purely because they were black. For certain groups of white folks, on the other hand, it could be argued that the world is, in fact, going to hell in a handbasket, as to many older folks like to complain.
To get you started, the DOJ has posted crime statistics for every year since 1960. The murder rate for 2012 (the last year published in my source) was actually lower than in 1960, although overall violent crime was higher.
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm
Absolutely not. /u/albino-rhino has the best general answer, so let me fill in a specific answer with some raw data. I've been taking apart some crime statistics for Juneau, Alaska, where I live. Here's the number of DUI arrests per 1,000 inhabitants for the past 40 years:
2014 • 5.12
2013 • 5.42
2012 • 6.49
2011 • 6.17
2010 • 7.35
2009 • 5.83
2008 • 9.05
2007 • 7.31
2006 • 7.82
2005 • 9.16
2004 • 9.96
2003 • 8.19
2002 • no data
2001 • no data
2000 • no data
1999 • no data
1998 • no data
1997 • no data
1996 • no data
1995 • no data
1994 • no data
1993 • 10.37
1992 • 9.49
1991 • 8.56
1990 • 9.53
1989 • 8.92
1988 • 9.72
1987 • 8.51
1986 • 6.82
1985 • 7.04
1984 • 6.55
1983 • 4.15
1982 • 5.81
1981 • 3.48
1980 • 4.51
1979 • 5.13
1978 • 7.11
1977 • 7.37
1976 • 8.41
1975 • 10.85
Even with incredibly active enforcement campaigns funded by federal money, the arrest rate is declining to some of the lowest rates in the modern era.
The drop in violent crime is just as big a deal, but I don't have those figures neatly broken out. I will say that there were 120 violent crimes in Juneau in 1976, or 7.06 per 1,000 residents. In 2014, there were 189 or 5.72 per 1,000 residents.
Violent crime includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. For property crime, which includes burglary, theft and arson, there were 45.41 instances per 1,000 residents in 1976 and 27 per 1,000 residents in 2014.
It'd take me more work to break out multiple years, but I will tell you that these statistics are not aberrations and there is a trend downward.
Kind of related question, nowadays in large cities there are parts of town that a white middle-class person wouldn't go to due to perceived danger, was it like that in the time frame op described and have more or less areas been designated "no go" zones?