America's serious crime rate is plunging, but why?

Sociologists have offered explanations including abortion laws, a fall in crack use and – most contentiously – longer sentences

Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 August 2011

On one of the lifeless, uniform streets of America's capital, a bulky former crack cocaine dealer who goes by the nom de guerre of Tiny laments the passing of the old Washington DC.

"Back then they called it the murder capital of the world. These few blocks here were the murder capital of the murder capital of the world, and right here's where I did my business. Made a lot of money too," he says, hovering on a corner in the mostly black Trinidad neighbourhood a few blocks north of that largely white citadel, the Capitol. "Even sold it down by the White House. Could do anything back then. We owned this city. Now it's like everywhere else. One giant coffee shop."

Tiny long ago moved on to the more legal if less lucrative, and certainly less adrenaline-pumping, enterprise of parcel delivery, which is why he is reluctant to give a name other than the one he used to be known by on the streets.

Two decades ago, Washington DC had the highest murder rate in America. Now the drive-by shootings that claim the lives of innocent teenagers are infrequent enough to shock, and make the newspapers.

Criminologists and sociologists have spent years grappling to explain the dramatic slide in violent and other serious crime in the US capital, but it's not unique to Washington.

The latest FBI figures show that murder, rape, robberies and other serious crimes have fallen to a 48-year low across the country.

In Washington last year, 131 people were murdered, the lowest number in half a century. Two decades ago, there were 482 homicides in the city amid turf wars among drug gangs and crack-driven violent robberies.

It's a pattern replicated across the country.

To find out how, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/21/america-serious-crime-rate-plunging