Homicides went up in 2020 and 2021 and are now rapidly coming back down. Violent crime nationwide hasn't increased. But the perception of a crime wave still colors U.S. politics.
Perceptions of crime waves are mostly driven by propaganda, not measurement.
In some cases, a “crime wave” doesn’t represent an undifferentiated mass phenomenon, but rather the behavior of a single organized crime group: it’s not that “everybody is being more criminal today” but rather “there is a specific gang that has figured out how to get away with a lot of crime”. This seems to be the case for a lot of property crime in my part of the country.
And it’s usually stopped pretty quickly too. Remember all that catalytic converter theft in the Bay Area? They caught the middlemen buying most of them and suddenly no one talks about it anymore.
Perceptions of crime waves are mostly driven by propaganda, not measurement.
In some cases, a “crime wave” doesn’t represent an undifferentiated mass phenomenon, but rather the behavior of a single organized crime group: it’s not that “everybody is being more criminal today” but rather “there is a specific gang that has figured out how to get away with a lot of crime”. This seems to be the case for a lot of property crime in my part of the country.
And it’s usually stopped pretty quickly too. Remember all that catalytic converter theft in the Bay Area? They caught the middlemen buying most of them and suddenly no one talks about it anymore.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of! I got hit by it twice in the East Bay. Pretty glad they caught the masterminds.