by Dan Lungren

About the author: Dan Lungren is the former attorney general for California.

Crime in California is dropping—fast. So far, the 1990s look to be the most promising decade for reducing crime since the state started keeping complete statistics in 1952. Although California suffered—along with the rest of the nation—while the crime rate nearly quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, California is now recording some of the largest crime reductions of any state.

Preliminary crime statistics for 1995 show that the overall crime rate in California fell 8.5 percent; violent crimes dropped 5.5 percent and property crimes fell 10.1 percent. If the trend holds, California will record a third straight year of falling crime in 1996, including a marked acceleration between 1995 and 1996. The hard evidence points to historic decreases in all categories of crime in the state. California is about to...