Contrary to popular belief, the overall crime rate in the United States has been on a steady decline over the past 25 years. It’s just that with so mu

Contrary to popular belief, the overall crime rate in the United States has been on a steady decline over the past 25 years. It’s just that with so much information at our fingertips we’ve been led to believe the opposite. However, a 47.70% percent crime rate is still a cause for concern and law makers are constantly coming up with a wide range of policies that will help reduce crime in the United States. It’s worth mentioning though that many of these have been backed by numerous studies.  1. Prison Education In 2004, Audrey Bazos and Jessica Hausman, two students at UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research, wrote a report surrounding prison education titled “Correctional Education as a Crime Control Program.” The pair outlined in their article that while spending $1 million on expanding the prison system prevented an average of 350 crimes, spending the same money on correctional education prevented 600 crimes of comparable severity. Sadly, the U.S. prison system doesn’t seem too concerned about this valuable tidbit given the fact that they have been massively cutting prison library funding nationwide since the 2008 recession. 2. Guaranteed Income The concept of Universal Basic Income is one that has been around for quite some time. It’s also a reality for people living in Alaska and North Carolina, particularly the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. And as we’ve seen by the research so far, there has been a significant drop in crime rates in places where guaranteed income was introduced. Another benefit is the general increase in social cohesion, lower stress and even public health due to more frequent visits to the doctor. And didn’t seem to have any negative effects on the employment or inflation rates. 3. Organized Religion In 2013, the Pennsylvania State University conducted surveys in a total of 182 counties in New York, California and Texas. In the report, it was discovered that among impoverished white, black and Latino populations there was a significantly lower crime rate if a larger percentage of the population identified with organized religions. This is because organized religion reinforces a sense of community. Though the same can’t be said for those who identified as spiritual but not religious—their crime rates were much higher than the non-religious. 4. More Night Light Criminals are more likely to roam the streets at night when they’re less likely to be seen. So it makes sense that increasing the lighting in neighborhoods will make wrongdoers think twice about their potential actions. This has been reflected in numerous studies such as a 2018 report by the New York City Police Department, the New York City Housing Authority and the research group Crime Lab. The study was conducted in 80 neighborhoods and over the course of six months, it was discovered that neighborhoods where the lighting was significantly increased led to a 39% reduction in violent crimes and that residents felt a bit safer walking around at night. 5. Robust Nonprofit It has been proved time and time again that communities that are endorsed by nonprofit organizations experience a sharp decrease in their crime rates. As seen in the New York University’s 2017 report called “Community and the Crime Decline,” for every large non-profit group related to crime and community life in cities made up of roughly 100,000 people, the murder rate dropped roughly by 0.9% and another 0.6% for violent crimes in general. This can especially be seen in Medellin, Colombia where such programs greatly improved the lives of its citizens.

Policies That Can Help Reduce Crime

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