The Rise and Fall of Murder Rates Since 1900
It is possible to look back over more than a century to note how the homicide rate has surged and ebbed in America during various historical periods.
As the trend line in Figure 3.4 indicates, homi- cide rates appeared to rise at the outset of the 1900s
V I C T IM I Z AT ION IN T H E UN I T ED S T AT ES : AN OVE RV I E W 87
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as states’ coroners’ offices joined the statistical report- ing system. From 1903 through the period of World War I, which was followed by the prosperous “Roaring Twenties” until the stock market “crash” of 1929, the murder rate soared. It rose even further for a few more years until it peaked in 1933. So during the first 33 years of the twentieth century, the homicide rate skyrocketed from less than 1 American killed out of every 100,000 each year to nearly 10 per 100,000 annually.
The number of violent deaths plummeted after Prohibition—the war on alcohol—ended in 1933, even though the economic hardships of the Great Depression persisted throughout the 1930s. During the years of World War II, when many young men were drafted to fight overseas against formidable enemies trying to conquer the world, only 5 slayings took place for every 100,000 inhabitants. A brief surge in killings broke out as most of the soldiers returned
home from World War II, but then interpersonal violence continued to decline during the 1950s, reaching a low of about 4.5 slayings for every 100,000 people by 1958.
During the turbulent years from the early 1960s to the middle 1970s, the number of deadly confron- tations shot up, doubling the homicide rate. This crime wave reflected the demographic impact of the unusually large baby-boom generation passing through its most crime-prone teenage and young- adult years, as well as the bitter conflicts surrounding the sweeping changes in everyday life brought about by social protest movements that arose during the 1960s and lasted well into the 1970s. The level of lethal violence during the twentieth century reached its all-time high in 1980, when the homicide rate hit 10.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. After that peak, murder rates dropped for several years until the second half of the 1980s, when the crack epidemic