Recently, after a busy day at the grind, I returned home, made myself a late supper, and turned on Netflix, hoping to find something unique and fascinating to watch.
I stumbled across a very dark and somewhat disturbing film titled ‘The Black Phone,’ which is set in Denver, Colorado, in the late 1970s and was inspired by the heinous acts of a few serial killers of the period, who also abducted kids.
As I watched this film, thoughts of crime, more specifically, how crime in the 70s compares to today.
It seems these days that we are inundated with stories about violent crime taking place in the world around us. Truly, we say, things overall are incredibly worse now than they were just a few decades ago.
According to police-reported crime stats, violent crime is on the rise in Canada. As stated in the Crime Severity Index (CSI), which measures crime in Canada, in 2023, the rate of police-reported crime increased by three per cent from the previous year to 5,843 incidents per 100,000 population.
The information from Statistics Canada went on to say that there was a four per cent increase in the rate of serious crimes, which includes homicide, assault, robbery, and extortion.
While this may serve as a legitimate cause for alarm, is our society becoming less safe, and are fewer crimes being reported?
For many, that – along with pinpointing the contributing factors to crime – seem to be open-ended questions. There are a variety of societal factors that can influence crime rates, including population and demographics, socioeconomic conditions, family stability, and poverty.
Many folks-including myself at times-become nostalgic for the good old days, when criminals were punished with severe prison sentences instead of being let off the hook with a slap on the wrist. While those who commit violent acts– proving themselves to be a threat to public safety, need to be removed from society, others, including troubled youths who commit a first-time minor offense, should not always be treated with such punitive measures.
Has crime gotten worse since the 1970s, or is that merely our perception? Keep in mind during the decade that gave the world disco, Watergate and Star Wars, there was no social media or internet, cellphones were the stuff of science fiction, and 24-hour news networks were a newfangled invention. The public, particularly children and youth, wasn’t exposed to nearly as much we are today.
When comparing Canada to our neighbour to the south, large American cities in the 70s were in many ways more dangerous than they are today. As for Canada, one thing to take into consideration is that the population of our major cities has only grown substantially in the past few decades or so. And while some will say increased immigration leads to crime, the findings of many academics and researchers say otherwise.
Yes, there has always will be crime in our society, and while we need to keep ourselves and our communities safe, we also must go on with our lives and not live in fear. The world has always (to a certain degree, at least) been a dangerous place, we’re just more aware of those dangers today.
