Drop in violent crime puzzles US experts

Back in 1991, no fewer than 479 murders among 600,000 people were committed in Washington DC, which made the capital of the free world one of America's most dangerous places.

Last year, there were 131 murders even though the population is the same.

All across America violent crime rates have been falling steadily and consistently for more than a decade.

A cynic could argue crimes are fewer because dispirited citizens no longer report them.

Across the US, according to the FBI, the murder rate dropped by 4.4 per cent in 2010. Last year there were 9.5 per cent fewer robberies than in 2009, a decline that followed one of 8 per cent compared with 2008.

And this during a bad recession, disproving the notion that hardship turns law-abiding citizens into dangerous criminals.

America's finest criminologists and legal experts disagree on the reasons.

The most obvious explanation is that the country is getting older. Violent crime tends to be the business of young adult males but that group is shrinking.

Others say it's large-scale incarceration and long prison sentences.

Some criminologists say the election of the first black President could have inspired the young blacks who are disproportionately convicted of violent crime to mend their ways. Others point to "smart policing", the increased presence of police at known hot spots for crime.

And far from encouraging crime, argue conservatives, more lax gun laws have made America safer by allowing people to defend themselves. Liberals counter that legalisation of abortion has reduced the number of unwanted children born to poor families, who might otherwise have slipped into a life of crime.

In 2007, an economist, Rick Nevin, produced data showing an exact fit between lead poisoning, long known to influence behaviour, and the crime rate. As lead levels in paint, water and, above all, petrol rose and fell, so did the crime rate.

Could violent video games be helping too? Video violence is supposed to desensitise people to the real thing. But for some, might not simulated violence be a satisfying substitute?

Criminals may believe that with new technology they're more likely to get caught. That too flies in the face of conventional wisdom, that criminals don't worry about the consequences of their deeds. DNA evidence and the camera phone, may be changing such calculations.

- INDEPENDENT