American Decades
Crime and Punishment
Feeling Safer.
Reflecting the downturn in crimes committed by and against adults, public opinion polls in the 1990s indicated that citizens felt safer in their homes and neighborhoods than they had in the 1980s. Polls also showed that in 1998, 48 percent of Americans thought that there was less crime in their local areas than in the previous year, while in 1989 only 18 percent responded that there was less crime. In 1998, in contrast to a poll taken ten years earlier, the number of people who thought there was less crime nationwide than in the previous year increased by 30 percent.
TREND IN ATTITUDES TOWARD LEVEL OF CRIME
Question. Is there more crime in your area than there was a year ago, or less?
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1990's Law and Justice
