Sociology Now, Census Update

criminologists has identified a legion of factors that con-

tributed to the drop in crime, including:

■An expanding economy (and thus more legitimate oppor-

tunities for employment)

■An aging population (more older people means crime rate

goes down)

■An increase in the number of police officers

■A decrease in the number of young males in their late teens

and early 20s

■Longer jail sentences for hard-core criminals

■Declining sales of crack cocaine and the violence associated

with the drug trade

■An increase in immigration by females, especially from

Russia and China

■The legalization of abortion

■The “little-brother syndrome” by which younger boys did

not grow up to become criminals after witnessing what hap-

pened to their older mentors (Bourgois, 1995; Fox, 2000; Freeman, 2000; Greene,

1999; Jackall, 1997; Kelling and Souza, 2001; Wacquant, 2006)

The decline of these “little brothers” is pronounced. During the 1980s, a great deal

of violent crime was concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods. Studies find that in

some of those areas, significant numbers of young boys saw the consequences of older

boys’ actions and opted not to follow in their footsteps to prisons or graveyards. Crime

rates came down when the younger boys reached the peak age for involvement in

crimes (Blumstein and Wallman, 2000; Glassner, 1999; Wacquant, 2006).

Crime and Guns

The United States has the weakest laws on handgun ownership in the industrialized

world. As a result, there are as many guns as there are people, and it shows in

crime statistics. Four million Americans carry a gun on a daily basis. Half of all U.S.

households have a gun at home (Wacquant, 2006). Nearly 70 percent of murders, 42

percent of robberies, and 20 percent of aggravated assaults are committed with guns

(U.S. Department of Justice, 2005).

Globally, the United States ranks in the middle of all countries’ rates of deaths

by guns (Figure 6.3). But no other industrialized country comes close to the U.S.;

indeed our rate is nearly double that of our nearest ‘rival.’ The United States has had

difficulty passing minimal regulations to monitor the distribution of guns. Federal

efforts to institute simple safeguards such as criminal background checks on prospec-

tive gun owners have met with fierce opposition from gun lobbyists. Many efforts—

such as attempts to block convicted criminals from obtaining guns or to revoke the

licenses of gun dealers who break the law—remain under attack by gun advocates.

In fact, since approximately 2000, some of the scattered state laws that had been in

effect for a decade or more have been weakened or repealed, particularly in the South

(Hemenway, 2005). For example, although criminologists have shown that limiting

volume purchases of handguns is effective at stemming illegal gun trafficking, South

Carolina abolished a one-per-month purchase rule in 2004 that had been in place

for nearly 30 years. That same year, the state of Virginia weakened a similar law that

had been on the books since 1993 (Wirzbicki, 2005). Despite stupendous rates of

violent crime involving guns, America has seen a general relaxing of gun regulation

so far in the twenty-first century (Hemenway, 2005).

188 CHAPTER 6DEVIANCE AND CRIME

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

1.44

1.43

1.42

1.41

1.40

1.39

1.38

1.37

1.36

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF OFFENSES,

IN MILLIONS

YEAR

FIGURE 6.2Violent Crime Offense:
A Five-Year Trend

Source:Crime in the United States, U.S. Department of Justice, 2005.