Social Change and the Future of Violent Crime. In Ted Robert Gurr (ed.) Violence in
America, Vol. 1. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1989, 235-250.
We have seen that crime is firmly rooted in many fundamental aspects of American life. Some of those
factors have been changing rapidly and some more slowly, but they all have implications for the future.
These implications are easiest to draw out for the most predictable aspects of life in coming decades, those
which involve demography. Almost all of those who will be filling the high-risk age categories during the first
decade of the twenty first century have already been born: we know their numbers, and who they are. What
they will do is less predictable, but some research suggests they will engage in more and more serious
acts of criminal violence than generations in the immediate past. The influence of poverty, racial and
generational inequality, and family and community disorganization also seem clear, and while it is less
certain that those forces will worsen, there seem to be a few reasons to be particularly sanguine about their
near-term trends. Another factor is the apparently tenacious criminality of Baby Boomers, who we saw may
not drop out of crime as rapidly as anticipated. Also, as long as race continues to track the distribution of
other hardship and family problems, the relative size of the youthful black population will add significantly to
our expectations concerning future rates of crime. None of these projections take into account the growth of
the Hispanic population. Hispanics experience many of the problems facing American blacks. On the other
hand, we also saw evidence above of worsening economic conditions and family disorganization among
whites as well as blacks and Hispanics. They all face declining real wages, increasingly below the poverty
line, and show evidence of family disruption. The diffusion of hardship and disorganization throughout the
population will multiply its effects on crime.
America, Vol. 1. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1989, 235-250.
We have seen that crime is firmly rooted in many fundamental aspects of American life. Some of those
factors have been changing rapidly and some more slowly, but they all have implications for the future.
These implications are easiest to draw out for the most predictable aspects of life in coming decades, those
which involve demography. Almost all of those who will be filling the high-risk age categories during the first
decade of the twenty first century have already been born: we know their numbers, and who they are. What
they will do is less predictable, but some research suggests they will engage in more and more serious
acts of criminal violence than generations in the immediate past. The influence of poverty, racial and
generational inequality, and family and community disorganization also seem clear, and while it is less
certain that those forces will worsen, there seem to be a few reasons to be particularly sanguine about their
near-term trends. Another factor is the apparently tenacious criminality of Baby Boomers, who we saw may
not drop out of crime as rapidly as anticipated. Also, as long as race continues to track the distribution of
other hardship and family problems, the relative size of the youthful black population will add significantly to
our expectations concerning future rates of crime. None of these projections take into account the growth of
the Hispanic population. Hispanics experience many of the problems facing American blacks. On the other
hand, we also saw evidence above of worsening economic conditions and family disorganization among
whites as well as blacks and Hispanics. They all face declining real wages, increasingly below the poverty
line, and show evidence of family disruption. The diffusion of hardship and disorganization throughout the
population will multiply its effects on crime.
Crime Trends
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