Cops, Blacks, and Crime: New at Reason

Don’t believe the media, which tend to make it seem like things are getting worse. John Stossel writes:

There was much more violence in the 1920s and ’80s, when government stepped up its wars on liquor and drugs. That drove those businesses into the hands of criminals and increased confrontations with police. The number of police officers killed in 1930, the worst year of Prohibition, was nearly triple the number of police officers killed in 2014. Prohibition is a bigger threat than Black Lives Matter.

Of course, it’s possible that crime will rise again. Few agree about why it dropped in the first place.

Maybe it’s the increase in video cameras and cellphones that allow people to see and report crime. Some even credit the smoking bans that put smokers on the street where they keep an eye on things. Or looser gun laws—criminals now don’t know whether a victim might be armed. And so on.

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