Trying to make any sense out of our criminal justice system is surely not easy, and I really doubt that additional expertise of any kind really helps, because the more you know about the details of the system, the harder it becomes to "see the forest". There are "experts" with opinions on all sides of each criminal justice issue.

Crime is down.

Crime does appear to be down. One source is a sampling survey, the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Census department, in an attempt to learn more about victims, estimate unreported crime, and to facilitate comparisons over time and between regions.

According to the NCVS, violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault) rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2001.

Property crimes (burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft) have decreased each year since 1974. Between 1992 and 1999 victimization rates at school and away from school declined.

The FBI is charged with collecting, publishing, and archiving statistics as the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Categories of crimes are violent crime, property crime, murder and homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Looking at the number of crimes in the period from 1982 through 2001... all types of crimes peaked in 1991 or 1992 and have dropped since, even though our population has grown during each of those years.

So the UCR numbers coincide quite well with the NCVS numbers... both indicating that crime has dropped steadily, especially since 1991.

Crime drops, prisons are stuffed, and costs rise dramatically

From a 1998 ABCNEWS.com report: 
By the early 1990s, Americans were fed up with the criminal justice system, with violence, with fear, and with criminals. When 12-year-old Polly Klass was slain in October 1993 by a repeat violent felon, the public outcry became a campaign issue. California politicians rushed to pass a tough “three strikes and you’re out” law that promised to lock up repeat offenders for life. Other states soon followed suit.
      
The turning point came in November 1994, when politicians who advocated mandatory sentencing, an end to parole and more spartan prison conditions were elected in local and state races all over the United States. More police officers on the streets, tougher sentencing rules and less parole helped bring crime down and prison populations up. The result was crowding in the cellblocks and a boom in prison construction.

During that same period of time, drug crimes have been more aggressively pursued, compounding the problems associated with cracking down on violent crimes. 
 
Over the past 20 years, the number of persons under correctional supervision... probation, jail, prison, or parole, has gone up by 3.5 times, and in 2001 over six and a half million people were "in" that system.

In spite of the fact that crime is decreasing, the United States needs the equivalent of a new 1000-cell jail or prison every week.

The cost of criminal justice has quadrupled over that 20 years, to $156 billion in 1999. Policing up 3.44 times, judicial up 4.14 times and corrections up 5.41 times.

Most of the increase in expenditure has been at the higher levels... the increase at the federal level has been over 5 times, while at the municipal level, the increase has been 3 times.

The US recently passed the two million mark of incarcerated prisoners, a percentage of our population that has no comparison anywhere else in the world, and no parallel to any other democracy in history.

So... we got tough on crime, and crime has reduced.

I hate to be a nit-picker, but oppressive dictators also have low crime rates. Stalin managed crime quite well. Looting was not a problem while Saddam Hussein was in power.

C'mon back tomorrow and examine with me about what "tough on crime" has gotten us, and we'll speculate as to what might happen in the future.