This is certainly the impression I'm getting. All recorded crime has fallen by something like a third since 1995, and it may even be the case that overall levels of violent crime are remaining steady or slowly falling, but this particular kind of really nasty violent crime, often committed by kids, does seem to be on the increase.
All this "seeming" and impression-making... what could be the cause of that?
Of course you always have to be wary of media scare stories and hype, but at the same time it's stupid to bury your head in the sand and deny that anything's going on when even a level-headed analysis of the situation indicates a serious and growing problem.
Oh, I see you're even dimly aware at how the media exaggerates violent crime, but let's not let that dissuade you from holding tightly to your preconceived and unjustified prejudices, because obviously those are independent from media impression-making. In fact, it's reasonable to portray anyone who doubts youth crime as burying their head in the sand and committing the supreme offense of not being level-headed. I think you're right that this position is going to have few supporters on this kind of forum.
We could also check statistical measurements to see what they say.
British Crime Survey:
Violent crime accounted for 14% of all recorded crime yet over the past five years violent crime has fallen by 22%, domestic burglary is down by 39%, and vehicle crime is down by 26%.
In 2005/06, 3.4% of people experienced a violent incident. In just under half (49%) of all such incidents there was no injury.
Of course, there are allegations that the British Crime Survey may be underreporting its figures, much like other crimes are being drastically underreported:
In December 2005 President Bush said there were 30,000 Iraqi dead. White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said it was "not an official government estimate", and was based on media reports.
It just SEEMED to the President that there were only about 30,000 dead according to media reports, really only the size of small midwestern city. I remember the hard swallow he made before he said the number.
An October 12, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article reported: "Asked at the news conference what he thinks the number is now, Bush said: 'I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life.' At a separate Pentagon briefing, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that the [Lancet] figure 'seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen. I've not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so I don't give it that much credibility at all'."
These tricky seeming numbers! It makes me want to just hide my head in the sand!
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