Causal relationships are difficult to identify in complex and multi-part initiatives, but New York City’s falling rate of gun violence suggests that recent community initiatives may have helped to sustain previous gains.
Policymakers, advocates, and even some researchers claim that youth confinement rates across the United States dropped in recent years due to changes in policy and practice. Such claims remain unproven, but voters and elected officials are inclined to accept them as factual because they are offered by reputable agencies and repeated in news media sources. Without reliable evidence, however, the notion that state-level youth confinement rates fall primarily in response to progressive policy reforms is merely appealing rhetoric.
The entire increase in drug crime arrests during the past decade was due to growing numbers of arrests involving adults ages 25 and older. Youth under age 18 and even young adults under age 25 were far less likely to be arrested for drug crimes in 2018 than any time in the past two decades.
Based on the latest statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the national violent crime arrest rate declined 38 percent overall between 1988 and 2018, but the steepest declines were observed among youth ages 10 to 14 (–53%) and 15 to 17 (–54%). The arrest rate for 18-20 year-olds dropped 47 percent while the arrest rates for adults ages 21-24 and 25-49 declined 42 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
Young men who express more confidence in law enforcement are less likely to support the use of personal violence to settle disputes and resolve personal conflicts.
New York City neighborhoods operating Cure Violence programs show stronger declines in violence-endorsing attitudes than do areas without Cure Violence programs.
The U.S. juvenile arrest rate for homicide rate grew 4 percent between 2014 and 2015 but remained 70 percent lower than the 1990s peak.
Data Source: Violent crimes reported to the Uniform Crime Reports program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC (www.ucrdatatool.gov) for 1985-2012 as well as data obtained directly from FBI reports for 2013, 2014 and [...]
