Increasing Crime and Violence
IMAGINE yourself in the position of the man in Italy on his way home from work. Carelessly he left his keys in the car as he hopped out to pick up an item in a neighborhood store. He was gone only a few minutes, but when he returned—you guessed it, no car!
After a restless night, how pleasantly surprised he was the next morning to find his car parked in its usual place in front of his apartment house. A note stuck under the windshield wiper explained: “Sorry to have inconvenienced you. It was an emergency. Accept my thanks and have an enjoyable evening at my expense.” Two theater tickets for that evening’s performance—the best seats in the house—were attached. His faith in mankind had been restored.
At the end of a most delightful evening at the theater, he returned home with his wife, fumbled around momentarily in search of his house key, opened the door and walked into—an empty apartment! Stripped of everything! His renewed confidence in mankind had been short-lived.
Though unique, this true story is only one of many that could be told to demonstrate the brazenness with which crimes often are committed. Of course, this crime was relatively mild in comparison to others, crimes so marked by brutality and sadism that you may have shaken your head in utter disbelief. Small wonder that many persons have lost confidence in humankind and live in fear.
All of us have been victims of crime. Organized crime picks every pocket. Chicago officials estimate that, because of outright extortion by the Mafia or because of extra theft insurance and additional security forces necessary to combat its operations, the average United States citizen pays an additional two cents on every dollar he spends.
Employee dishonesty and shoplifting force businesses to hike prices to regain losses. You are paying for the dishonesty of others. Employee dishonesty in the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, costs taxpayers one billion marks (over $500,000,000, U.S.) annually. Crime is truly expensive, if not for the criminal, at least for the victim, for the victim always has to pay.
Disturbing New Trends
Crime has been around for a long time. But recently it has taken on new dimensions. A steadily mounting wave of crime and violence, not limited to any one country or locality, has caused law-enforcement agencies and laymen alike to take a more serious look at crime and what can be done to combat it successfully.
More and more “senseless crimes” are being committed, crimes with no real motive. They may involve simply smearing graffiti on public property or ripping out the pages of public phone books.
But all too often they take a more serious form, one marked by uncalled-for brutality. For example, two 17-year-old boys recently attacked a 33-year-old man on the outskirts of a German city and took turns stabbing him; police afterward reported finding over 80 stab wounds! When asked, “Why?” the two young men answered: “We just had the urge to do someone in.” In another instance a group of slightly older youths attacked a notary public in Cherbourg, France, and beat him so mercilessly that he lost consciousness and died three days later. Their motive? “Just for the fun of it.”
Another disturbing trend is the increase in female offenders. The terrorist scene in Germany, for example, is unique in that a large proportion of its known members are women. As of February 1979, 12 of the 16 persons on the polices’ most-wanted list of suspected terrorists were women.
But perhaps what worries judicial and legislative leaders most of all is the sharp increase in crimes committed by young people. Time magazine, speaking about the situation in the United States, said: “People have always accused kids of getting away with murder. Now that is all too literally true. Across the U.S., a pattern of crime has emerged that is both perplexing and appalling. Many youngsters appear to be robbing and raping, maiming and murdering as casually as they go to a movie or join a pickup baseball game.”
This trend among young people predicts no good for the future. The Hamburger Abendblatt, commenting on the German situation, said: “According to the latest crime statistics, the number of 14- to 18-year-old suspects arrested since 1975 has risen by 25.1%. In the children-under-14 category, the increase has been 30.8% . . . an end to this trend is not in sight. We must reckon with a further increase in the number of delinquent teenagers and children.”
No question about it. Crime is a problem and one we would do well to take seriously. The French government considered it serious enough to warrant the appointment of an 11-man commission to investigate the matter. For 16 months these men deliberated before submitting a 700-page report with 103 recommendations for alleviating the problem.
The United Nations organization considered the problem serious enough to justify the establishment of a 15-member Committee on Crime Prevention and Control that sponsors a world congress every five years to ponder methods of coping successfully with crime on a global scale. The general theme of the 1975 meeting: “Crime prevention and control—the challenge of the last quarter of the century.” A sixth congress is scheduled for Sydney, Australia, in 1980.
What does today’s steady increase of crime and violence mean? Is it going to grow until there is no hope of recovery? Or is the problem being exaggerated? Is it really all that bad? What do you think?
[Blurb on page 4]
“People have always accused kids of getting away with murder. Now that is all too literally true.”