In a discussion with someone recently, I argued that the world isn't a worse place than it was in the past. I said that the kids today aren't any more prone to criminal behavior than the kids of years past, and that overall the world isn't a more dangerous and threatening place than it was in the past. She didn't believe me, saying that she was certain everything was much worse now than it had been when she was growing up. At this juncture, I am proud to point out that I was right, and I have statistics.
In a recently released study on crime rates from 2010, the homicide rate has been the lowest it has been in years, down to levels not seen since 1966. Overall, crime has been on a downward trend for three decades. Plenty of people like to claim that unreported crime is on the rise, including, unfortunately, public safety minister Vic Toews, but that's a way to weasel out of statistics and justify increasing the focus on crime when it's actually decreasing overall. Since homicide can't be hidden easily, the decrease in numbers can't be avoided by claiming there are unreported homicides.
So it's clear that the world is not a more dangerous place now than it has ever been. Statistically speaking, there is less criminal activity now. While there are stills spikes and variations overall, they often have a clear reasoning behind them. Part of the credit for the declining homicide rate in the country is given to a tapering off in gang violence in B.C., a similar decline happened in Montreal after their problems with organized crime began to calm down in 2000.
Say that though, and you'll likely find people will try to disagree with you and insist that the world is a much scarier place now than it has ever been, and all the numbers in the world will not convince them otherwise. Why is this the case? It doesn't have anything to do with actual danger or any real life problems they encounter, but instead involves their perspective.
Take the person who prompted this discussion, in her case she has a teenage daughter. Her perspective changes, and through the eyes of someone worried about their children a fear develops. The worry about her own kid leads to her being more concerned about the state of the world, and more prone to keeping close track of crimes, youth issues, and the problems of today. Statistics can't assuage the fears of a worried mother, and since there is now someone who these crimes can affect outside of herself - and someone who might be dragged in to the problem - the world becomes worse than it is.
That fear is much more of a concern than the actual problem for many people. Someone cynical could suggest that an attempt to exploit that fear is why the current federal government likes to bring up unreported crime - people worried about their children are often active voters. While looking at the world objectively one can see that people haven't actually changed that much, and crime has been on a downward slope, people still fear it, and that fear increases as they get older and have more people to worry about.
We need to remember to look at these things objectively, and policies need to be made objectively, not through a lens of fear.
