Drop in Crime Rate - Unity Church of Charleston

For the past tree years now, I have been tracking the FBI reports on crime. Looking at past FBI reports, during the past 20 years, violent and property crime have precipitously gone down. As an example, there are 10,000 LESS murders a year now compared to 1991. That's amazing. There are 1 million less burglaries a year than 1991 and 1.2 million less car thefts a year than in 1991. All 8 measured categories have gone down. This needs to get more press. We seem to be in a fog. A fog that pervades our media, which "leads what bleeds" for its headlines. And we contribute to it by catering to the media's giving us what we want. So all of us are responsible. We have this idea that the world is just naturally falling apart, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The problem with that is that entropy only happens in a closed system. Our world is an open system and we can do better. And we are.

The newest reports (12-19-2011) are out for the first six months of 2011, and yes, the drop continues. Here are two paradoxes.

Paradox 1: An amazing fact is that the drop in all 8 categories even happened during the years of the Great Recession, when you think desperate people would do more crime.
Paradox 2: Even more incredible is that the nation's population goes up everyday. More people, less crime. Interesting.

Population group	Number of agencies	Population	Violent crime	Murder	Forcible rape	Robbery	Aggravated assault	Property crime	Burglary	Larceny- theft	Motor vehicle theft	Arson
January to June 2011 Percent Change by Population Group
Total>>>>	12,554	254,657,803	-6.4	-5.7	-5.1	-7.7	-5.9	-3.7	-2.2	-4.0	-5.0	-8.6
Cities:
1,000,000 and over	10	25,013,346	-5.4	-7.5	+1.0	-7.8	-3.9	-4.2	-1.1	-5.8	-1.2	-6.8
500,000 to 999,999	21	14,275,754	-6.7	+1.2	+6.7	-7.7	-7.3	-3.9	-3.6	-3.6	-6.1	-8.4
250,000 to 499,999	41	14,205,510	-5.7	-1.9	+0.1	-6.6	-5.7	-0.9	-0.3	-1.1	-1.1	-5.0
100,000 to 249,999	192	28,804,343	-6.6	-4.7	-6.7	-6.3	-6.8	-5.1	-2.1	-5.7	-8.6	-13.5
50,000 to 99,999	403	28,098,401	-7.2	-21.8	-2.5	-8.9	-6.6	-3.1	-1.7	-3.5	-3.1	-10.2
25,000 to 49,999	721	24,896,068	-5.8	-18.9	-6.8	-9.5	-3.9	-4.9	-4.0	-5.1	-5.2	-9.1
10,000 to 24,999	1,607	25,413,559	-6.5	-4.9	-8.5	-7.6	-5.9	-3.6	-2.1	-4.0	-5.2	-7.5
Under 10,000	6,233	19,865,316	-6.1	+2.6	-8.7	-9.7	-5.1	-4.6	-5.7	-4.3	-4.9	-8.7
Counties:
Metropolitan1	1,345	52,108,866	-7.6	0.0	-8.8	-8.6	-7.2	-3.2	-1.3	-3.2	-9.2	-5.2
Nonmetropolitan2	1,981	21,976,640	-6.4	-7.0	-13.7	-8.5	-5.0	-0.5	-1.7	+0.5	-3.6	-13.4
1 Includes crimes reported to sheriffs' departments, county police departments, and state police within Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
2 Includes crimes reported to sheriffs' departments, county police departments, and state police outside Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

Crime still goes on and we have work to do, for sure. To those affected by crime, the FBI reports may mean nothing. I understand. We are very sorry for your hurt, loss, etc. There is nothing we can say but lend you our prayers and thoughts. And there is crime that goes unreported as well, eg. physical and sexual abuse, etc. But things are, however, getting better. The "better angels of our nature" are winning out. I stole that line from the title of a great book by Pinker. His book documents the drop in violence internationally. It just came out recently (2011). It validates what I have seen and believed for the past three years, and what has been going on now for at least two decades in terms of crime as measured by the FBI, and in other ways. People are spiritual in essence and therefore good (the better angels of our nature). It is our bad choices, ego and unresolved pain that do bad things. The human spirit is much more powerful. But when we're taught that we are bad and sinful, what are we going to do? More bad. If we're taught that we are spiritual beings, good in essence, then we'll do more good. We've never thought of people as predominantly spiritual and good.
It's time to do so, I believe.