Complexity Digest 2000.31 - 13.07

31-Jul-2000

Has America's Tide Of Violence Receded For Good?, Science Bookmark and Share

Experts in the young field of violence epidemiology blame guns and crack cocaine for America's deadly crime surge in the early 1990s. Explaining the subsequent decline in violent crime rates has been more difficult, however. Some of the factors that seem to have helped squelch crime could be temporary, such as low unemployment rates. But others, including a growing intolerance for violence as a means of settling interpersonal disputes, seem to have become cultural norms.