First, violent crime:
Now, property crime:
US crime rates appear to have dropped back to levels last seen in the 60s and 70s. But that doesn’t mean crime is no longer a serious problem in this country. Crime was too high fifty years ago and it remains too high now. As the above charts show, the decades-long surge in violence and property crimes began in the 1960s. And Americans were mad as hell about it. By the end of that decade, “law and order" had become a hot-button political theme and effective campaign slogan.
We can do better than to settle for what used to be considered unacceptable. On that point, it’s irrelevant that crime rates have declined this century.