The Crime Drop in America

Book Overview

Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521681480
• ISBN13: 9780521681483
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Prison employee

A very useful book for policy makers to understand what have been the primary causes of drops in crime, and informative for what hasn't been responsible. There is nothing worse than decisions being made on incorrect information when public safety is at risk, and this book helps avoid that trap.

Informative and Accurate

This is a highly informative and accurate book. It presents the data in a clear and graphic form, with a minimum of statistical manipulation. The studies cited by the previous reviewer, Lloyd Rowsey, are based on econometric modeling. Since the one he mentions, two other econometric models of abortion and homicide have been published with opposite results. One is by Ted Joyce, the other by John Lott and John Whitney. Econometric modeling can prove anything. If you want to understand crime in America in the 1990s, buy The Crime Drop.