Question

Looking ahead, what do you see as the future level of crime in the United States? What specific changes do you expect to see in the strategies and policies by which our society responds to crime? What changes would you like to see toward the goal of improving U.S. society?

Answer 1

The future level of crime in the United State

• Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. The two most commonly cited sources of crime statistics in the U.S. both show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since it peaked in the early 1990s.
• One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in approximately 18,000 jurisdictions around the country.
• The other is an annual survey of more than 90,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of crime, regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police.
• Public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data. Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down.
• Stricter alcohol policies-Alcohol has been linked to violence. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of violent crimes.Banning is not option but higher taxes on alcochol could help.Reducing the number of alcohol outlets through stricter licensing.

The specific changes in the strategies and policies by which our society responds to crime:

• Police can, obviously, play a huge role in reducing crime, especially by adopting evidence-based tactics like hot-spot policing.In many cities, a very small subset of places, down to the street and block level, drive most of the crime. So deploying police, intelligently, in these specific areas can have a big impact on fighting crime and violence.
• Focused deterrence hones in on specific problems in a community, such as drug dealing, generally violent behavior, gangs, or gun violence. It then focuses on the individuals and groups who drive most of that activity, particularly those with criminal records and those involved in gang activity.
• The strategy brings together law enforcement and community groups to clearly signal the major legal and community consequences of violence, especially in relation to an individual's previous criminal record. And to provide alternatives to violent or criminal lifestyles, the community should also offer social services and other forms of help.
• So if someone has a long history of drug or even violent crimes, police could let him know about the legal consequences of violence — decades or life in prison — and the community could voice, through personal interactions, how it would directly damage his family, friends, church, school, and so on. And the groups should also offer help through, for example, accessible job and education programs.
• Another way to reduce crime and violence could be to keep kids in school longer. Lawmakers could adopt Denmark's model, which requires students to complete a certain number of grades. Presumably there would be exceptions, such as for children with extreme disabilities. This would be less arbitrary than an age cutoff, but it could run into some politically tricky territory if it forces adults 18 and older to stay in high school.
• Whatever method policymakers use, keeping kids in school longer appears to reduce crime rates. And it doesn't involve guns at all

Goal of improving U.S society:

• Behavioural intervention programmes-The University of Chicago Crime Lab has done a lot of great work into many different policy proposals to fight crime. One of those ideas, Youth Guidance's Becoming A Man, is emblematic of how specific these policies can get — it targets youth who are at risk of getting into violent encounters, perhaps because of the neighborhood they live in or what school they go to.
• The program then uses once-a-week interventions, based on cognitive behavioral principles, to teach youth how to react in encounters that can turn violent.
• It helps kids understand and slow down the scripts that they use to get by.They have exercises that the kids do where they get to practice self-regulation, skills, and slowing down and negotiating with other people the kinds of things that young boys growing up particularly in a tough environment haven't had enough of a chance to practice.