NCJ Number
174667
Journal
Social Science Quarterly Volume: 78 Issue: 3 Dated: September 1997 Pages: 725-739
Date Published
1997
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This paper used data from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS) to examine the widely held belief that there was a significant increase in the level of criminal activity during the 1980s.
Abstract
Data were also obtained from the National Corrections Reporting Program and the Drug Abuse Warning Network. Generally, the study found that neither the UCR nor the NCVS depict increasing levels of crime over the 1980s; however, there was apparently a significant increase, beginning in the mid-1980s, in the incidence of more serious or violent types of crime, notably murder, robbery, and motor vehicle theft. Although the overall level of criminal activity remained relatively stable during the 1980s, there was a significant increase in the incarceration rate, primarily due to an increased probability of incarceration, given arrest for all offense categories and a sizable increase in the number of arrests and incarcerations for drug law violations. Data on cocaine-related emergency room visits, drug deaths, and drug-related murders suggest that the increase in the number of incarcerations for drug offenses resulted from not only the increased enforcement of existing drug laws, but also of a significant increase in the use and sale of crack cocaine. This increase does not appear in either the UCR or the NCVS, because neither data source measures the incidence of victimless crime. The spread of crack through the central cities of the United States is reminiscent of the spread of heroin a generation earlier. 3 figures, 1 table, and 30 references