Violent Crime on the Rise - More Violent, Younger

This report from Anderson Cooper confirms what I've been arguing for some time, that crime would come back and that its more violent. More crimes are being committed by younger people. And the sensational media is part of the problem:

A new report by the Police Executive Research Forum, whose members include senior officers nationwide, paints a disturbing picture of crime in midsized and major cities: in Milwaukee, aggravated assaults up 85 percent since 2004; in Arlington, Texas, aggravated assault with a firearm up 129 percent.

Robberies rose almost 43 percent in Memphis, 44 percent in Las Vegas. Then, there's murder, according to the report, up 130 percent in Charleston, 188 percent in Orlando. FBI data confirms that, after a long fall, violent crime is rising again, nationwide by about 4 percent last year.

What's the cause:

We have reduced the number of cops in America. We're making guns accessible. We're no longer passing gun- control laws like we were doing. We're seeing the rise of meth, which seems to be causing a drug response. Gangs are getting guns and drugs in ways they have never done before.[...]Gangs have made a comeback when we have ignored that issue. Guns have made a comeback, as Congress as seemed to retreat from its -- its gun stand, allowing the NRA to run roughshod over the -- over the Congress.

So, we're -- we're -- we're now seeing the effect: fewer cops, more kids, more guns, and fewer dollars spent in prevention.

Who's to blame:

COOPER: Politicians have their own theories. Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat who authored the 1994 crime bill, blames the Bush administration for drastically cutting funding for the federal community policing program.

In a report to be issued this month, the Brookings Institution says that program distributed close to $1 billion a year to help hire thousands of cops between 1995 and 1999. In 2005, funding for the initiative dwindled to just $5 million.

Media part of the problem:

COOPER: Do we also have a -- a culture of violence? I mean, I think just about everybody will agree that there is a culture of violence in -- in -- in the music young people are listening to, in the movies that we see, certainly in the video games that they are playing.

And -- and I don't want to sound like an alarmist or reactionary, but that's got to have some kind of an impact.[...]We have become desensitized, not just kids who are desensitized to violence, as they play video games that -- that reward them with points and levels when they kill lots of people, but adults, too. We have become desensitized. We're much too tolerant of violence.