Crime Decreasing

  

Twenty of the 22 police departments that were surveyed in the nation’s largest cities said there were fewer felonies in the first six months then there were in the same period last year. Incidents of felonies like murder robbery, murder, and assault have declined the most in. San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, El Paso and San Antonio, in descending order. San Francisco reported a 25.2 percent decrease in total felonies, with better than 20 percent decreases each in murder, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny theft and motor vehicle theft. Unlike most of the other cities, where the reported decreases followed years of rising crime rates, New York saw a downward trend continue; it had already recorded three straight years of modest declines. The only reported increases in felonies were in Phoenix (11 percent) and Baltimore (3.2 percent), the survey said. Mark Moore, a criminologist at Harvard University, said the survey was "probably good news," but he noted that "it doesn't capture the fear that is out there." He says no matter how statistics show that crime is decreasing their beliefs will still rely on the picture the news and media paints. Deputy Police Inspector Joseph E. Lovelock explains the decrease in crime as a result of the “Building Boom” of new prisons nationwide, tougher local and national gun-control regulations and a national trend in law enforcement toward community policing -- taking officers out of patrol cars and putting them on city streets, where they can come to know a neighborhood and its problems, and the neighborhood can come to know them.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/08/us/urban-crime-rates-falling-this-year.html

5:00pm