Violence – How bad? – Trying to maintain a rational outlook.

while I think there are new creative ways to break the law these days, I also believe that technology makes it seem like horrible things are happening at a super fast rate right in our own backyard. I mean before when it took maybe hours or even days to find out about a horrible event somewhere across the country, today it's instantaneous because of the internet, twitter, facebook, etc.
I do not like the way some media outlets lead people to believe that the world is so dangerous that we can't even leave our houses anymore.
I think you have to be smart and aware of what's going on around you. The days of leaving your doors and windows unlocked are gone.

I think you answered your own questions, Danneskjold. Simply put: violent crime always gets our attention, and media outlets know that "what bleeds is what leads." I am not immune to the fascination with news stories on violent crime, despite the fact that on a cognitive level I know that focusing on stories about crime makes me more cynical about human beings and causes me - over time - to adopt an increasingly skeptical worldview.

All news like crime is local, you can't use national crime averages and equate it to where you live. Sure crime might be down in the burbs around the country dragging our national average down but our cities here in the mid west are dying on the vine. Shootings up 70% in Toledo, more people are going to die in Chicago from violence than die from WAR in Afghanistan.

OK, I will play for a minute. Let's take a look at Chicago, since dbw8906 mentioned it and the city has been the poster child of late for crime mania. Based on FBI crime statistics between 1985 and 2010, every violent crime category in Chicago is signficantly lower than 25 years ago:

Murder: 666 (1985) versus 432 (2010).
Robbery: 26,892 (1985) versus 14,213 (2010).
Aggravated assault: 29,096 (1985) versus 13,757 (2010).

Rape statistics for Chicago were not included in the report, as CPD uses different criteria than the FBI. Based on the reportings, though, Chicago's population is down about 9.9 percent in the past 25 years, while violent crime is down over 40 percent.

The numbers for Toledo are interesting: rape is much lower, murder seems to be steady, while robbery is a little higher. However, aggravated assault has been steadily climbing in Toledo for the past 15 years; I am not sure why Toledoans are beating on each other more, but perhaps this reflects higher reporting in domestic violence cases or something.

Yet even with the spike in aggravated assaults, violent crime is down almost 20 percent in Toledo over the last 8-10 years. We had a few years with spikes of over 1200 violent crimes per 100,000 people (or the average Joe and Jane had a 1.2 percent chance each year of being a violent crime victim) but in 2010 the rate was 993 per 100K (or less than a 1 percent chance of a violent crime each year).

Are America's cities safe, crime-free utopias? Hell no! But should we walk around with the perception that violent crime lurks around every corner and in every second house? I think not.

Be prudent, be wary, be prepared, but don't live your life thinking you can never leave your home because the streets are filled with violent criminals salivating to beat, rape, and kill you, no matter what FOX and CNN may tell you.

HM, You're not skeptical, you're sensible. I believe that experience in the world leads sensible people to question the motives of others. Whether the others are business colleagues, strangers in a seedy section of town or used car salesman, time teaches us all to be careful and in many cases the safest route is to judge a book by it's cover.

I believe it all has to do with the advent of instant media. We now know immediately when bad things happen. Before that it took days for the word to get to the people.

I grew up where no doors were ever locked, neighbors and friends came in and out and our neighborhood was safe. My parents did not even lock cars or left the keys in the ignition. A different time and a different world back then.

Just a ditto to most of the comments already posted. There used to be, at most, or 5 sources for news in Toledo (ABC, NBC, CBS, WSPD, and the Blade), now "news" is thrust upon you from every angle. In the '70s and '80s, you only heard about news that mattered, because the outlets had a very limited amount of time to use. Now every local station has at least 2 newscasts just during dinnertime, radio stations purport to bring you news all day long, and the internet is full of people generating news by the nanosecond. For the most part, it's all one big distraction.

My Facebook page has been inundated with morons posting "news" stories about incidents they want you to believe are analogous to the Trayvon Martin affair - which has been totally exploited - to gain support for one political view or another. The same thing is happening on news/talk radio and television. What would have been reported as a shooting in Chicago in years past is now titled, "Young, black choir boy heinously murdered by mob of white gangsters believed to be White Supremacists."

Regardless of the way they are depicted today, I truly believe that most mainstream media outlets USED to try to be as unbiased as possible. That may no longer be the case, but I think it is as much a reaction to the way people want to hear the news as it is a desire to actively steer the conversation. People now seek out "news" that fits their belief system, whether that is based on politics, religion, money, or something else.

^^ yep, what he said. It was interesting to read in the Blade ombudsman's column that some people who read the paper write in to complain because they don't want to read anything they don't already agree with.

Also, we sleep with our windows open, and have gone to bed with an unlocked door several times over the past few years. I am SO grateful that there are safe neighborhoods here in Toledo where the occasional slip-up doesn't result in a robbery :-)

They need to go back to just the facts and not spin stories with personal agenda or the reporters own view on things. Save their personal feelings for the editorials.

Linecrosser, what would some recent specific examples of that be? I would be curious to learn more about them. Thanks.

crime is going down where we live. the old west end is one of the largest neighborhoods in the city, and we only accounted for less than 2% of the city's total crime last year. that's WAY down for years ago. i have zero fear living in toledo. it's a wonderful place to live. :)

Trying to explain away Obama's statement about the Supreme Court can't overrule on the Obamacare bill. The editing of the 911 audio tape of the Trevon Martin shooting. I am sure there are some on the right as well but since I lean right I dont watch liberal media to see them pointed out, I'm sure AC can mention a few.

What?

I'm sure that it's no worse, there are just more people and more pervasive media. Whenever I start to think things are getting worse, I remind myself of a day I spent helping my mother with genealogy research. I was paging through microfiche of old newspapers from the 1870's and 80's, and I kept seeing reports of robbery, burglary, murder, and terrible accidents due to negligence. One that stuck in my memory was a young boy, 8 or 9 I think, who had shot another boy to death. Another was a man killed over a woman, which said that he was shot with "the proverbial 'I didn't know it was loaded' gun." I guess that the reporter had heard that one more than once before.

The spike in violence in America just might be due to the fixation on individualism in our culture, which in turn, inclines us to devaluate people we do not know.

In interpersonal relationships, it's good to foster a level of moral development based on autonomy and interdependence, whereby we acknowledge responsibility for our own actions and are aware that our own well-being and that of others are one and the same.

Flinty:

Did you read the above material at all? Perhaps you just overlooked the earlier posts providing data on the national decreases in crime. The point of this thread is to compare perceptions of crime fed to us by the media verus the reality. For grins, go type in the words "crime" and "epidemic" in an aggregate like Google News and watch the thousands of hits that show up just on recent news stories.

There is no "spike" in violent crime, nationally or locally, and the trend has been downward for the past two decades.

• 2010: 1,246,248 violent crimes had been reported nationwide, a decrease of 6.0 percent from 2009.
• The 2010 estimated violent crime total was 13.2 percent below the 2006 level and 13.4 percent below the 2001 level.

If there is a "spike" in anything, it is to be found in news coverage, not reported violent crimes.

If it bleeds it leads...

It's only a theory, and George Gerbner has his detractors...but I thought it is worth posting in this thread:

Cultivation Theory and 'Mean World' Syndrome:

"Mean world syndrome" is a term coined by George Gerbner to describe a phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is. Mean world syndrome is one of the main conclusions of cultivation theory. Gerbner, a pioneer researcher on the effects of television on society, argued that people who watched a large amount of television tended to think of the world as an intimidating and unforgiving place.

The number of opinions, images, and attitudes that viewers tend to make when watching television will have a direct influence on what the viewer perceives the real world as. They will reflect and refer to the most common images or recurrent messages thought to impact on their own real life. Gerbner once said "You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour," he said. 'It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.". We learn through story telling, Gerbner describes the story telling of today as television.

Excellent, oldhome! Thanks for introducing me to Cultivation Theory. It explains a lot. We are living through a grand experiment right now .. I'm so grateful that a large part of my formative years was TV-free (even though our babysitters let us watch way too much crap sometimes).

Lots of good points from those who contributed. I think the reason that I posted the subject was that I was pondering my life back in the 80‘s and 90’s when violent crime was at its apex. I was much younger then but I do not recall the panic feeling. I was out all around the city and all times of the night (and way too often btw!!!) Maybe violence back then was sadly underreported because of the people who were most affiliated with the crimes. Maybe I just was not paying attention? That might be a double edged sword in a sense. When it’s front page news – there is the sensationalism and fear driven panic issue and then when it’s buried in the back pages there is the devaluation of life issue.

I know that in the last few years there have been a few activities I have curtailed because of not feeling as safe. I want to make sure I am taking a rational view on things before letting the news affect my quality of life. I do believe that areas of the city are less safe than they used to be. I would not ride my bike late at night in areas I would have ten years ago but cities are always in flux I imagine – even in the 50’s when my neighborhood was being built I am sure some areas around town were becoming less safe. Thanks to those who contributed.

Now put his thread in perspective of one of the Westfield/Franklin Park threads where people swear entering the mall is like Mad Max entering the Thunderdome.

Now put his thread in perspective...

That's easy. All these stats depend on reported crime, which can be a far cry from actual crime. One case in point is the crime of attempted robbery, where a robber approaches his victim of choice and belatedly discovers the victim is armed. The robber flees and the crime is never reported.

There is probably all kinds of crime at the Westfield mall that isn't reported to The Blade or accounted for any other way. That doesn't make the place a war zone, but it does mean that you should be careful in certain areas like the parking garage. Plus there's an ugly rumor I've heard that there are gay guys in the Men's room - I've never actually seen one, but then I don't spend a lot of time hanging around there. Hey, who knows, right?

You call the rumor ugly, but gladly repeat it.

Do you have any evidence to support your theory that armed people are turning away crooks in any real numbers or even in single case at the mall?

Nice thread. Danneskjold, I highly recommend Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker discussing the long-term, global decline of violence. It's fascinating and a quick read - well, as quick as you can get for a book overflowing with history, statistics, neuroscience, moral philosophy and more.

They have it at the library.

Moral philosophy, makes me think of Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers. Where you have to serve a term of service in the armed forces to be a citizen with the right to vote or hold public office.

From Wikiquotes.

Starship Troopers (1959)

These are just a few samples; for more quotes from this work, see Starship Troopers.

Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.

Could I have my line and sinker back please? I have other hooks...

No SensorG, I do not have any evidence at hand. I'll refer you to John Lott - More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (Studies in Law and Economics). Read it and go into denial.