“People naturally have this pessimism about [future crime trends]....If you predict the future’s going to be terrible, you’re in a win-win situation. If it does happen, you were right. If it doesn’t, your raising the flag of concern helped turn it around.”

—Howard Snyder, National Center for Juvenile Justice, January 3,1999

In December 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice released statistics showing that the national crime rate had declined for the seventh year in a row. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, the homicide rate fell 31 percent from its all-time high in 1991 and was at its lowest point since the 1970s. The violent crime rate also dropped dramatically—25 percent—falling to its lowest level since 1973, when the Justice Department began collecting crime victimization statistics. Property crimes dropped 17 percent from 1997 to 1998 alone, and by 55 percent...