Gun Control Gun control laws restrict the legal
purchase of firearms. Although such laws may help
to decrease numbers of homicides, criminals are still
able to obtain firearms through illicit means.
During the 1990’s in Canada, guns remained the
weapon of choice in homicides. Nevertheless, only
one-third of the homicides in Canada involve the
use of firearms. Canadian gun-ownership advocates
argue that gun control merely keeps guns out of the
hands of responsible citizens while failing to prevent
the wrong people from getting firearms. Proponents
of gun control credit such laws with the reduction in
homicide rates.
In the United States, two-thirds of homicides in-
volve the use of firearms. The Brady Handgun Vio-
lence Prevention Act, known as the Brady bill, was
signed into law in 1993; this law increased the wait-
ing period for gun purchases. The increased control
of firearms in the United States may have played
a role in the reduction of violent crimes in the
1990’s. Arguments both for and against gun control
in the United States parallel the arguments made in
Canada.
Incarceration In the United States, the nationwide
incarceration rate began to increase in the 1980’s,
growing by 42 percent over the next decade. As the
incarceration rate increased in the United States,
the crime rate started to drop. The argument that in-
creased incarceration has a causal connection to the
reduction in the crime rate implies that any gains
made will be reversed when these offenders are re-
leased back to the streets.
Canada’s incarceration rate fell by 3 percent from
1991 to 1999. Theorists have speculated that the de-
crease in the incarceration rate may be related to the
higher rate of property crime in Canada, in compari-
son with the United States, during that period.
Drugs In the 1980’s, the rates of drug use in the
United States and in Canada were close to equal.
During this period, crack cocaine emerged as a pop-
ular drug, and what has been referred to as the
“crack epidemic” is considered to have been a factor
that contributed to high urban crime rates. Since
the 1980’s, the United States has seen rates of arrests
for drug use that are three times higher than the
rates in Canada. It has been argued that the use of
crack cocaine decreased in both countries during
the 1990’s and that this decrease contributed to de-
clines in crime.
Demographics Research on the causes of crime
has consistently found a strong relationship between
age and crime. Young people ages fifteen through
twenty-four are more likely to be offenders than are
persons in other age groups. During the 1990’s, the
populations of both Canada and the United States
experienced decreases in this age group. Some re-
searchers credit the reduction of crime in Canada to
an 18 percent reduction in the proportion of youths
in the population. The reduction in the population
of fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds was the strongest
common factor related to crime that occurred in
both countries during the 1990’s.
Impact During the 1990’s, reductions in crime
rates contributed to a general feeling of social well-
being in Canada and the United States. Subsequent
studies have aimed to clarify the causes of these de-
clines in crime. Because criminal justice policies dif-
fer between the two countries, the drops in crime
cannot be tied to any particular criminal justice poli-
cies. The key to an understanding of the exact rea-
sons for the decreases in crime rates in either of
these nations during the 1990’s may depend on re-
searchers’ ability to understand the causes of the
similar declines in the other.
The trend of declining crime rates continued in
both Canada and the United States into the early
years of the twenty-first century, but around 2005,
the rates began to increase in several crime catego-
ries. Whereas legislators in the United States have fo-
cused on the issue of crime since the 1960’s, crime
did not become a major political issue in Canada un-
til much later. The increased political focus on crime
and rising crime rates in Canada in the early twenty-
first century prompted public officials there to push
for the passage of laws aimed at reducing crime, such
as stricter gun control laws, antigang laws, and laws
targeting young offenders.
Further Reading
Chaiken, Jan M. “Crunching Numbers: Crime and
Incarceration at the End of the Millennium.”Na-
tional Institute of Justice Journal(January, 2000): 10-- Explores trends in crimes of violence and
property offenses, analyzing possible relation-
ships between diminished crime rates and in-
creases in incarceration rates.
Conklin, John.Why Crime Rates Fell.Boston: Pearson
Education, 2003. Argues against some of the gen-
erally accepted explanations for the decline in
230 Crime The Nineties in America