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Getting the Crime Rate Down: Political Pressure and Crime Reporting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

David Seidman  and
Michael Couzens
David Seidman
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Michael Couzens
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

. . . [F] ear is being swept from the streets of somethough not all- American cities.

John Mitchell, September, 1971

New York Times, 1971: IV, 16

Enterprising police are making news rather than history in the preparation of their annual reports. Dry tabulations are giving way to charts, pictures, and other illustrations that catch the eye and tell the story of the problems and accomplishments of the department.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1966a: 58

During the 1960's, “crime in the streets” emerged as a major political issue. 1 Consequently, measurement of changes in the amount of crime also became politically important. As a candidate in 1968, Richard Nixon, recognizing this, proposed the use of the District of Columbia as a site for an evaluation of his anti-crime proposals by means of crime statistics: There is another area where the Federal Government has an opportunity to make a dramatic demonstration of its concern with the problem of crime, its commitment to new solutions and the efficacy of its proposals. That is in Washington, D.C.the nation's capital where the authority of the Federal Government is great and its prerogatives many. Washington, D.C. should be a model city as far as law enforcement is concerned-a national laboratory (New York Times, 1972).

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , Spring 1974 , pp. 457 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © The Law and Society Association, 1974.

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Footnotes

AUTHORS' NOTE: This article is a revision of a paper prepared for delivery at the 1972 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 5-9, 1972. The original paper was prepared while we were at the Brookings Institution, and we gratefully acknowledge the Institution's support. However, the views expressed in this article are those of the authors and should not be taken to represent the views of the Brookings Institution, or necessarily to represent the views of any person associated with the Institution.

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