I was going to say “dying down”, but that would have been an unfortunate way to phrase it. Anyway, in the early to middle nineties, I was always hearing about gang violence, meaning one gang going off on another, and the inevitable innocent people getting Caught In the Crossfire. (A very nineties phrase, along with In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.) Nowadays, I don’t hear much about gang violence, and what I do hear about is usually straight-up crime, like people robbing stores. There are reports of shootings and brawls, but they’re mostly made to sound like random incidents of young alpha males, without gang affiliations, getting liquored up and getting crossways other guys who are also looking for trouble, but who they don’t otherwise know. Gang warfare always made good copy, so I’m not sure the media would downplay it if it was still widespread, but maybe they’re just focusing on school shootings and ignoring gang activity. Anyone?
We’ve had 4 murders in the last week, and 4 the prior month in Oakland that were connected to a drug-turf war.
When the rate goes down, the cops take credit, when it goes back up, they can’t figure out why. And the whole time they really did nothing different.
Thanks for replying, 7. I think that’s the case with most statistics.
The murder rate has fallen in 8 of the last 9 years in the US.
Theories abound such as, is it locking up far offenders for longer, or is it the changing demographics of society in general, or the improvement in the economy.
It is only in this last year that it has risen again.
US authorities are waitng to see if its a blip or a trend.
How much gang warfare contributes to the overall murder rate I do not know but on the face of it there appears to be less of it.