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: Governing Through Crime

Dallas 1963 and the Culture of Fear

By Jonathan Simor

Today Americans in many large cities are experiencing levels of homicide last experienced in the mid-1950s. This is the result of a crime decline across the country that began in the early 1990s when homicide levels were twice has high (or higher).  When you look at homicides on a graph, this steep decline marks the end of a period of high homicide that began in the early 1960s and which reached peaks in the mid to late 1970s and late 1980s.  This pattern has never been adequately explained by criminologists but its impact on American crime policies seems clear enough.  In the periods following both peaks American states adopted "tough on crime" sentencing laws designed to send more people to prison, for more time, and for more crimes than at any time in our history...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on November 26, 2013 (boomark / email).