revelarts
11-30-2014, 04:26 PM
American Police Continue To Militarize Despite Record Low Crime Rates
American Police Continue To MIlitarize Despite Record Low Crime Rates (http://www.mintpressnews.com/americans-police-continue-to-militarize-despite-record-low-crime-rates/192029/)
Though it seems like at least one gun-related death is in the news every day, a study published by Pew Research Center in May 2013 found that the national rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes have actually decreased since the mid-1990s — a surprising statistic, considering 56 percent of Americans think gun crime is higher now than it was 20 years ago.
In their analysis of violent gun crimes throughout the past 50 years, Pew researchers found that gun rates rose in the 1960s, further surged in the 1970s, and peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s. Then, rates started declining.
When the study was conducted last year, the rate of firearm homicides was down 49 percent from 1993, putting the rate of gun-related crimes in the United States closer to levels last seen in the 1960s.
“Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.
Researchers couldn’t explain why gun violence has decreased in the U.S., though.
“Researchers have studied the decline in firearm crime and violent crime for many years, and though there are theories to explain the decline, there is no consensus among those who study the issue as to why it happened,” the summary says.
In Chicago, for example, gun-rights advocates argue that the state’s year-old concealed carry law is why the city saw its lowest murder rate in 50 years this year.
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy disagrees, though, and has attributed the reduction in crime to police officers in the city recovering around 1,300 illegal guns in the first three months of this year alone.
To account for the drop in gun-related crime, McCarthy, who has been an opponent of concealed carry laws, also said police officers receive better training now and pointed to community programs working to keep kids off the street.
Despite the decline in gun crimes throughout the nation, the U.S. continues to have a higher rate of homicide than other developed countries, with 31,672 deaths from guns reported in 2010 alone, according to the Pew study.
Why the high rate exists in the U.S. is not entirely known, but Pew researchers say it may be because the U.S. has a higher rate of gun ownership than any other developed country.
With the issue of gun control emerging as a hot topic again, the study’s findings should be comforting for Americans, but Alfred Blumstein, an urban systems professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, said, “The public doesn’t get its feelings out of crime statistics.”
Instead, Blumstein argued, “The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events, and what the press talks about,” such as the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and other mass shootings.
In addition to gun crime, recent studies have found that other crimes such as assaults, robberies and sex crimes had decreased by 75 percent in 2011, but as David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, said, based on the media coverage, “it sounds like school shootings [and other crimes] are way up…So people believe things must be worse.”
He said the reason gun crime rates likely decreased is because other crime is also down. “There’s no huge thing — there’s been no major changes in gun policy,” Hemenway said.
As the American public pushes lawmakers to do something about gun control, how various laws affect gun crime rates may be evident in the next few years.
interesting
American Police Continue To MIlitarize Despite Record Low Crime Rates (http://www.mintpressnews.com/americans-police-continue-to-militarize-despite-record-low-crime-rates/192029/)
Though it seems like at least one gun-related death is in the news every day, a study published by Pew Research Center in May 2013 found that the national rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes have actually decreased since the mid-1990s — a surprising statistic, considering 56 percent of Americans think gun crime is higher now than it was 20 years ago.
In their analysis of violent gun crimes throughout the past 50 years, Pew researchers found that gun rates rose in the 1960s, further surged in the 1970s, and peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s. Then, rates started declining.
When the study was conducted last year, the rate of firearm homicides was down 49 percent from 1993, putting the rate of gun-related crimes in the United States closer to levels last seen in the 1960s.
“Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.
Researchers couldn’t explain why gun violence has decreased in the U.S., though.
“Researchers have studied the decline in firearm crime and violent crime for many years, and though there are theories to explain the decline, there is no consensus among those who study the issue as to why it happened,” the summary says.
In Chicago, for example, gun-rights advocates argue that the state’s year-old concealed carry law is why the city saw its lowest murder rate in 50 years this year.
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy disagrees, though, and has attributed the reduction in crime to police officers in the city recovering around 1,300 illegal guns in the first three months of this year alone.
To account for the drop in gun-related crime, McCarthy, who has been an opponent of concealed carry laws, also said police officers receive better training now and pointed to community programs working to keep kids off the street.
Despite the decline in gun crimes throughout the nation, the U.S. continues to have a higher rate of homicide than other developed countries, with 31,672 deaths from guns reported in 2010 alone, according to the Pew study.
Why the high rate exists in the U.S. is not entirely known, but Pew researchers say it may be because the U.S. has a higher rate of gun ownership than any other developed country.
With the issue of gun control emerging as a hot topic again, the study’s findings should be comforting for Americans, but Alfred Blumstein, an urban systems professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, said, “The public doesn’t get its feelings out of crime statistics.”
Instead, Blumstein argued, “The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events, and what the press talks about,” such as the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and other mass shootings.
In addition to gun crime, recent studies have found that other crimes such as assaults, robberies and sex crimes had decreased by 75 percent in 2011, but as David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, said, based on the media coverage, “it sounds like school shootings [and other crimes] are way up…So people believe things must be worse.”
He said the reason gun crime rates likely decreased is because other crime is also down. “There’s no huge thing — there’s been no major changes in gun policy,” Hemenway said.
As the American public pushes lawmakers to do something about gun control, how various laws affect gun crime rates may be evident in the next few years.
interesting