Title: Decivilization in the 1960s
Headings: Decivilization in the 1960s
Decivilization in the 1960s
Steven Pinker
Figure two - Homicide rates in US and England 1900-2000
Biography
References
Notes

Content: 1] Figure one, Homicide rates in five western European countries 1300-2000, shows that European countries underwent a bounce in homicide rates that brought them back to levels they had said goodbye to a century before. Figure one - Homicide rates in five western European countries 1300-2000
And figure two, Homicide rates in US and England 1900-2000, shows that in the 1960s the homicide rate in America went through the roof. Figure two - Homicide rates in US and England 1900-2000
After a three-decade free fall that spanned the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, Americans multiplied their homicide rate by more than two and a half, from a low of 4.0 in 1957 to a high of 10.2 in 1980 (U.S. Bureau of Statistics; Fox and Zawitz: 2007). The upsurge included every other category of major crime as well, including rape, assault, robbery, and theft, and lasted (with ups and downs) for three decades. The cities got particularly dangerous, especially New York, which became a symbol of the new criminality. Though the surge in violence affected all the races and both genders, it was most dramatic among black men, whose annual homicide rate had shot up by the mid-1980s to 72 per 100,000. The flood of violence from the 1960s through the 1980s reshaped American culture, the political scene, and everyday life. Mugger jokes became a staple of comedians, with mentions of Central Park getting an instant laugh as a well-known death trap.