Public Safety: Crime Is Up,But What About Punishment?

Abstract

Reported crime rates have risen, and arrest rates have too, particularly among the young. Men have higher victimization rates than women, and blacks have higher victimization rates for crimes of violence than whites. Social Indicators, 1976 tells us this and a bit more about crime and responses to it, but overall the picture presented is at once insufficiently informative and inappropriately precise. The shortcomings of major data sources are acknowledged, but questionable findings are presented as near certain. Uniform Crime Reports trends for 1960-75 are presented without the important context of earlier trends. Important data from the National Crime Survey are presented without mention of probable artifacts. Data on system response to crime could have been presented so as to provide insight into the probable cause of the increases shown in trends in reported offenses. Important data, particularly those showing a declining rate of imprisonment, have been omitted, and the interrelations of crime and response have not been highlighted. The major shortcomings of the chapter seem to result not from inadequacies in execution of the design, but rather from limitations in available data and from the apparent assumption that data presented in chart form speak for themselves.