Friday, April 22, 2005

The Golden Age of Crime?

The nicest of all raving right-wingers, Laban Tall, has recently tried to dismiss suggestions that crime is genuinely at an all-time high, despite the scepticism of (doubtlessly self-hating and white) "liberals".

The problem for him is, of course, that crime is historically under-reported, so that comparisons with modern times are very difficult, and that the government has recently (and commendably) recategorized offenses so that all individual offenses, not merely the number of offenders sentenced, count.

So, it is actually likely that this is, at best, a silver age for criminals, at best.