Is crime really down? Down from WHEN?

Missed this one, so thanks to a commenter at Garth's blog who reposted it there.

All the "soft on crime" folks like to tout the stats that say "crime is down", but most of us average Joe Canadians have known all along that something wasn't right about those numbers. Here's perhaps the reason why... since 1962, violent and property crime is WAY up... it peaked in 1991, and has only SLOWLY been coming down since then.

Personally? When I'm talking about crime, I want to get back to the 1962 numbers...

Stats are a crime
The real numbers on Canada’s crime rate tell a shocking story
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
July 31, 2008

Today let’s take a break from the BS we’re being fed about global warming to examine the BS we’re being fed about crime statistics.

Specifically, about how “low” they are today compared to the past, how anyone who believes otherwise is paranoid and how the best way to make the crime rate even lower is to go even softer on criminals than we already are.

First, let’s examine what the crime rate actually is compared to years ago, as opposed to what we’ve been told it is.

Here are some figures you probably didn’t see widely quoted in the media earlier this month when Statistics Canada released its 2007 data on falling Canadian crime rates.

- First, violent crime is up 320% since 1962, when modern records first started being kept.

- Second, property crime, which many victims don’t even bother to report anymore, is nonetheless up 75%.

- Third, the overall crime rate is up 152%.

What, you say? You’ve been told, ad nauseam, by soft-on-crime politicians, media, criminal lawyers and prisoners’ rights groups that crime has been going down for years?

You’ve been told people who think as you do — that our streets aren’t as safe as they used to be — are suffering from paranoid delusions fuelled by right-wing politicians and irresponsible media?

Okay, let’s look at the actual numbers from Statistics Canada.

Canada has been keeping uniform crime statistics since 1962.

- In that year, there were 221 reported violent crimes per 100,000 population. Last year there were 930 — a 320% increase in the crime rate compared to 1962.

- There were 1,891 property crimes per 100,000 population in 1962, 3,320 in 2007, a 75% increase.

- The overall crime rate was 2,771 incidents per 100,000 people in 1962, 6,984 last year, a 152% increase.

Any graph that accurately tracks crime rates shows a steep increase throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, peaking around 1991, then falling relatively slowly ever since.

The key word is slowly. While it’s true the crime rate has been decreasing since 1991, it has never returned to anywhere near the far lower rates of 45 years ago, particularly for violent crime, the category law-abiding people most care about.

No one knows why the crime rate peaked around 1991, not just in Canada, but the U.S.

Some argue it was due to the gradual aging of the giant baby boomer generation, particularly young males who, as a group, commit most crime. Another controversial theory cites the increasing availability of abortions, meaning fewer unwanted, neglected children.

Whatever happened, the hug-a-thug crowd today uses the relatively small post-1991 drop in the crime rate to argue that since crime is going down, we don’t need to toughen laws or impose stiffer sentences. In fact, they say, we should do the reverse.

Nonsense. One could just as easily argue the skyrocketing crime rate we experienced throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to levels which essentially still exist today for violent crime, was the result of the soft-on-crime attitude of both federal Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments.

REHABILITATING OFFENDERS

That attitude was best summed up in a 1971 speech to Parliament by then Liberal solicitor-general Jean-Pierre Goyer. Complaining about the high costs of keeping criminals incarcerated, he said: “The present situation results from the fact that (the) protection of society has received more emphasis than the rehabilitation of inmates. Consequently, we have decided from now on to stress the rehabilitation of offenders, rather than the protection of society.”

Yes, you read that right.

Remember it the next time someone from the hug-a-thug crowd tries to tell you the crime rate is down.