Question

super Freakonomics chapter 3

1.Describe the behavior of crime rates between the mid-1950s and 1970. In addition, describe
what was happening to arrests per crime and the rate of imprisonment over this same time
period.

2.Explain the related to U.S. crime rates through the decades of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Answer 1

The problem of crime has been central to discussions of a number of leading issues, including the meaning and significance of the American Revolution, the rise and fall of slavery and the convict-leasing system, Reconstruction, the modernization of the south, economic development, and race relations. Although rising crime rates are a key part of this story, it is only by examining those trends within their social, political, institutional, and historical context that one can understand the underlying causes of the steep increase in incarceration rates. In Stockholm after 1950 every category of crime skyrocketed. Some 20 years increases in rates of offenses known to police are; murder and attempts, 600%, assult and battery, more than 300%; rape and attempted rape, 300%; robberies 1000%. In mid-1970s, crime rates surged upward. The reported crime rate was fairly level during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, before sharply increasing until the early 1970s. The rate increased through the early 1900s, peaking in 1933 at 9.7 murders per 100,000 population. The rate then decreased until 1960, followed by a sharp increase until the mid-1970s. The drug arrest rate increased rapidly from the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s.  In 1953, 131 persons were on death row, while 62 were executed, a ratio of 2:1. In 1960, the ratio of death sentences to executions was 4:1. An American's chance of being murdered was relatively low in the 1950s and early 1960s. It doubled between 1964 and 1974. If we use 1960 or 1965 as our baseline year, almost every city shows a big increase in murder. If we use 1970 or 1975, there is not much change. If we focus on trends for the past year or two, as news reports usually do, we find significant increases in most cities. If the level of violence were increasing steadily over time, trends would look the same no matter what year we chose as a baseline. In reality, however, violence fluctuates a lot in relatively short periods. As a result, the recent upturn does not prove any clear long-term trend.

Since the early 1970s, the United States has engaged in a historically unprecedented expansion of its imprisonment systems at both the federal and state level. Since 1973, the number of incarcerated persons in the United States has increased five-fold, and in a given year 7,000,000 people were under the supervision or control of correctional services in the United States.