Crime drop

The crime drop or crime decline is a pattern observed in many countries whereby rates of many types of crime declined by 50% or more beginning in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s.

The crime drop is not a new phenomenon emerging in the 1990s. For Europe, crime statistics show a declining pattern since the late 20th Century. From the 1960s to the 1980s and 1990s, crime rates rose in all wealthy Western countries before the decline continued. Irrespective of the reason for the increase, this period appears as a relatively short deviation of the long-term decline beginning centuries ago and continuing after the early 1990s.

There is no universally accepted explanation for why crime rates are falling, though many hypotheses have been proposed, especially in the United States. Many proposed explanations (such as increased incarceration rates or the use of leaded gasoline) have only occurred in specific countries, and cannot explain the decrease in other countries. Most crime experts agree that changes in policing or sentencing policies can also be excluded.

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