Is crime on the rise?

[Dill]

(12-11-2023, 08:16 PM)grampahol Wrote: Comparatively speaking crime rates are much lower than they were before gasoline had lead in it.. 
If you were to follow the feeds in suburban areas on the Nextdoor app you'd likely think you'd have to climb over the piles of dead bodies just to go to the grocery store and everyone under the age of 40 was a wanton killer and if there's one thing everyone should know is that just about anything can be made into a crime if legislative bodies decide to outlaw them and the other way around. I remember when marijuana possession was definitely a crime anywhere in the United States and technically still is. Crime laws change over time all the time. ie: guns, abortion, driving over 55 mph, prohibition and on and on.  Just about any political party in power, state, federal and local can skew crime statistics on a whim by simply changing laws to suit their agendas..  

The other thing to remember, though, is that if, say, the powers that be reduce the speed limit to 55 everywhere, that will likely result in stats showing an "increase in speeding violations" compared to the previous year for sure. But I don't think that is skewing statistics, even if I dislike the law.

If intentional homicide is "definitely a crime," it is possible that its occurrence may actually increase or decrease in different regions as social conditions change. E.g. Were a region to become quickly economically depressed, subject to an influx of immigrants looking for employment, and a market for lethal recreational drugs, homicide incidence might actually rise, however it is defined, and granting that tweaking definitions might raise or lower the count somewhat.  If "mass shooting" incidents are defined by a body count of four, that definition will produce more mass shootings over a year than a definition which requires a body count of six.  But the actual number of homicides will be the same regardless of that definition; those in power can't simply "skew" such basic stats on a whim. 

They can skew perceptions though. And how that is accomplished should be the focus of critical literacy.  Citizens ought to be concerned with understanding how stats are collected and framed, without assuming stats are inherently unreliable, meaningless or, as Twain put, a step worse than "damned lies." (Not that you were doing that, Gramps. I'm just using your observations as a springboard for these points.)