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Against this background, violence on the American scene today is still alarming, but it scarcely suggests a disastrous deterioration. Public tolerance of violence seems lower than ever before in U.S. life, and public respect for law far higher. Above all, there is evidence to show that—some statistics to the contrary—violent crime in the U.S. is not really growing relative to the population. After massive researches, the President's Crime Commission admits that crime trends cannot be conclusively proven out by available figures. According to FBI reckoning, crimes of violence have risen about 35% so far in the 1960s. But these figures fail to consider two important factors: population growth and changes in crime reporting. Experts believe that part of the apparent increase is caused by the fact that each year the police grow more thorough—and the poor are less reluctant—about reporting crime that previously went unrecorded. Says Sociologist Marvin Wolfgang, president of the American Society of Criminology: "Contrary to the rise in public fear, crimes of violence are not significantly increasing."
But their pattern is changing. The incidence of murder and robbery relative to population has decreased by 30% in the past three decades. On the other hand, rape has tripled. Males are seven times more likely to commit violent crimes than women, but the women are catching up: in five years, arrests of women for crimes of violence rose 62% above 1960 v. 18% for men. From the newest figures, certain other patterns emerge. Despite widespread fear of strangers, most crimes of violence are committed by a member of the family or an acquaintance. The arrest rate for murder among Negroes is ten times that among whites, but most of the violent crimes committed by Negroes are against other Negroes. Violence is increasingly an urban phenomenon: 26 large cities containing less than one-fifth of the U.S. population account for more than half of all major crimes against the person. Poets sometimes have sociological insights, and Robert Lowell knew what he was talking about in his lines:
When Cain beat out his brother Abel's brains
The Maker laid great cities in his soul.
Innate or Learned
Violence is not only an urban but overwhelmingly a lower-class phenomenon. In Atlanta, for example, neighborhoods with family incomes below $3,000 show a violent-crime rate eight times higher than among $9,000 families. In the middle class, violence is perhaps sublimated increasingly in sport or other pursuits. Says Sociologist Wolfgang: "The gun and fist have been substantially replaced by financial ability, by the capacity to manipulate others in complex organizations, and by intellectual talent. The thoughtful wit, the easy verbalizer, even the striving musician and artist are equivalents of male assertiveness, where broad shoulders and fighting fists were once the major symbols."