Factors Contributing to

U.S. Crime Trends

Alfred Blumstein and Richard Rosenfeld

Over the past 30 years, crime has become a major issue of public concern,
of political discussion and action-often intemperate and not likely to reduce
crime-and of major public expenditure. Despite its salience in the public arena,
very little is known about the factors driving the crime trends, and the
knowledge base is too limited to support intelligent forecasts of the direction in
which crime rates are moving, especially when changing direction. Developing
such a knowledge base is important for enhancing the rationality of public
policies and public expenditures related to crime, particularly because many
such commitments have to be made well in advance of their actual use. These
include, for example, recruiting and training police forces, building prisons, and
developing other interventions outside the criminal justice system.

In this chapter we summarize the crime trend history over the past
35years,examine the factors that appear to have been particularly influential in
driving those trends, consider whether change in those factors could have been
known in advance, and use that information to indicate some of the potential
directions for enhancing the knowledge needed for better explanations and
forecasts.

Name : Faqia Sabir

Package : 1000
Date : 20th June, 2023