Preying On The Fear Of Crime

If one listened to the news, one could swear there is a murder on every street corner, a rape in every bedroom, and a terrorist around every corner.

Violence sells, so news reports show lots of violence, which convinces the public violent crime is on the rise, yet the fact remains it is on the decrease in North America and has been for many years. The FBI's Uniformed Crime Statistics show that violent crime in urban centers generally has been decreasing steadily for the past 15 years or so. But no police chief ever got a new helicopter by saying crime was on the downswing.

The actual problem is that Property crime is on the rise, mostly due to a lack of uniforms on the street. It would make more sense if what they were doing was to increase the actual number of policemen on the street, but that is hardly ever the case, Police Chiefs don't like Policemen, they'd rather a new toy, or form a new "Strike Team" to combat whatever flavour of the weak the press is touting, which does nothing but take more police off the street. Acronyms are the thing, but you know what, I've never seen a S.W.A.T. or a D.A.R.T. or E.R.T. prevent one burglar

Some of our American brethren may remember President Clinton came up with a federal "initiative" which was going to put 100,000 new police officers on the street nationally. IIRC the actual number of Policemen that ended up on the street was something in the order of 15,000.

There is lots of crime out there, but not as much (in most areas) as the evening news would have you believe. There are solutions to the property crime problems, but they would cost money to fix, unfortunately too many citizens would rather spend their money on a gun to keep under their pillow, or armed security guards.