Arguments: Declining homicidesHomicide Is Declining Around the World – but Why?
Americans are currently living in one of the lowest crime periods ever – and so are many people in the rest of the world. Following decades of increasing crime during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, U.S. homicide rates declined by almost 40 percent throughout the 1990s, and have remained low since. Mateus Renno Santos and Alexander Testa write that in their new study, they make the case for a possible explanation: The population of countries around the world is getting older.
Americans are currently living in one of the lowest crime periods ever – and so are many people in the rest of the world. Following decades of increasing crime during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, U.S. homicide rates declined by almost 40 percent throughout the 1990s, and have remained low since.
Mateus Renno Santos and Alexander Testa write in The Conversation that most explanations of this extraordinary decline in violence put forth by politicians and early academic research focus on events and domestic policies exclusive to the United States. However, emerging studies are providing evidence that this crime decline is not unique to the U.S., but rather occurring across most of the world.
A global decline in violence suggests that criminal justice policies of individual countries may have less impact on the decline in homicide than worldwide events or trends.
They write:
In our new study, published on Oct. 9, we make the case for another possible explanation: The population of countries around the world is getting older.
In the United States, rising homicide rates during the 1960s and 1970s paralleled a spike in the young population following the baby boom. An early homicide decline occurred in the 1980s, which follows a trend of a decreasing youth population as baby boomers aged into late adulthood. This early crime decline was interrupted in 1985 by the crack epidemic, and the corresponding escalation of violence. However, in 1992, as the crack epidemic waned, homicide trends resumed their decline alongside an aging population.
Aside from the United States, several other countries around the world also experienced steep homicide declines since the 1990s in parallel with an aging of their populations, such as Canada, Austria, Japan and Italy.
These countries share few commonalities in terms of their national cultures, domestic policies and approach to criminal justice. Japan, for example, has seen a steep aging of their population and a homicide decline, but with far less forceful criminal justice policies than those in the U.S.
Our models suggest to us that age plays a large role in this pattern. Age was the only factor we looked at that consistently predicted homicide increases and declines over an extended period of time.
