The New York Times reports today that experts are baffled that index crimes remain low across the country despite dire economic times. They might also have been baffled that crime soared in the 1960s and early 1970s despite good economic times. The explanation is obvious — generational values. There was a crime generation just as there was a welfare generation, and a divorce and single parenthood generation. It’s the same generation. And now they are on to something else.
The crime index measure street crimes. These are disproportionately committed by young, poor men, often minority men. What the crime experts are forgetting is that as Generation Greed has aged, the surge in street crime by the poor has been replaced by a surge in white collar crime by the non-poor, and lesser victimizations that are not strictly illegal in a "beyond a reasonable doubt" sense but merely immoral. Most of the poor minority men of Generation Greed are getting too old to rob and rape and kill and burgle. The better off members of that Generation are now running our public and private institutions. Which is why we are rotting toward an institutional collapse. Because while we had a 30 year crackdown on street crimes, some would say an excessive crackdown, there is nothing of the sort going on with regard to our institutions. This is what happens when crime moves up the social ladder. A lot of it isn’t even illegal. No "broken windows" theory applied.