Good News

Here’s more proof that the editorial page is sometimes a great source for news, especially good news. Look at these amazing statistics reported by David Brooks:

• According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of family violence in this country has dropped by more than half since 1993.

• Violent crime over all is down by 55 percent since 1993 and violence by teenagers has dropped an astonishing 71 percent, according to the Department of Justice.

• The number of drunken driving fatalities has declined by 38 percent since 1982, according to the Department of Transportation, even though the number of vehicle miles traveled is up 81 percent.

• The total consumption of hard liquor by Americans over that time has declined by over 30 percent.

• Teenage pregnancy has declined by 28 percent since its peak in 1990.

• Teenage births are down significantly and, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions performed in the country has also been declining since the early 1990’s.

• Fewer children are living in poverty, even allowing for an uptick during the last recession.

• There’s even evidence that divorce rates are declining, albeit at a much more gradual pace.

• People with college degrees are seeing a sharp decline in divorce, especially if they were born after 1955.

• Teenage suicide is down.

• Elementary school test scores are rising

• Teenagers are losing their virginity later in life and having fewer sex partners.

His conclusion: “You want to know what a society looks like when it is in the middle of moral self-repair? Look around.” I’m not so sure about that. It would be nice, but I wonder whether these numbers portray an accurate picture. Number are weak. Torture them and they will say anything. For example, decreases in violent crime sometimes occur merely because of changing demographics. During a baby bust, crime will go down because there are fewer young people around and older people tend to be less violent. As for declining divorce rates, that may be due to the fact that more people than ever before are shacking-up rather than getting married in the first place. And it seems like the news is filled with reports of children being kidnapped, raped, and murdered like never before. Maybe it is just getting more attention, but it would be interesting to see if those numbers have increased.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2005 at 5:47 pm and is filed under The Media, The Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.