NCJ Number
156572
Journal
Reader's Digest Dated: (August 1995) Pages: 15-30
Date Published
1995
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This analysis of crime during the last 10 years concludes that crime is generally becoming more violent and that demographic data indicates that the problem is going to become much worse.
Abstract
During the last three decades, a person's chances of becoming a crime victim increased 280 percent; the chances of becoming a victim of violent crime increased 460 percent. Although ordinary citizens believe that the criminal justice system too often favors the offender, an influential anti- incarceration lobby believes that the system is too harsh. However, statistics confirm the public views that the crime rate is not declining, criminals are more violent than in the past, that sentences do not fit the crimes, and prisons are not overcrowded with petty criminals and first-time drug offenders. In addition, too many convicts are out on the streets. Nevertheless, progress has occurred in the effort to protect society from repeat offenders; California's new three-strikes law is estimated to prevent about 340,000 serious crimes per year. Although more incarceration will not prevent all crime, it will bring a sense of order and justice to places where violent criminals prey freely on the innocent and will help check the next crime wave tied to the increasing number of young predators.