During his last presidential campaign, Richard Nixon denounced "the wave of crime" that he said was sweeping the country. What was needed, he said, was "leadership that will place this problem as the first priority of American business." The Republican nominee characterized Attorney General Ramsey Clark as "soft on crime" and a "coddler of criminals." A new man at the Department of Justice, Nixon proclaimed, was needed "if we are to restore order and respect for law in this country." Republicans everywhere blamed the permissiveness of Democratic Administrations for rising crime rates.
That was 1968. Now, three years later, Nixon's unblushing rhetoric may well be returning to haunt him. Under his Administration, crime has continued to mount. In 1969 the total of reported crimes increased 12% over the previous year, while the four categories of violent crime—murder, rape, robbery, assault—jumped 11%. In 1970 total crime rose another 11%; violent crime increased 12%. Clark's successor, Attorney General John Mitchell, has released the FBI statistics for the first half of this year. The figures were no more encouraging: total crime up 7% compared to the same period last year, violent crime up 11%.
With some rather dubious statistical footwork, Mitchell sidestepped the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the report—that performance has not matched promise. "The continuing upward trend illustrates that crime is still one of our foremost problems," he admitted, "but the decelerating rate of increase provides a basis for cautious optimism." Although crime increased 7% from January through June this year, said Mitchell, that was 4% less than 1970's increase over the year before. In other words, things are getting worse more slowly.
Deceptive Gains. The Attorney General pointed out that 50 cities with populations of more than 100,000 reported reductions in the amount of violent crime; last year 34 such cities reported reductions. What is more, Washington, D.C., "the only city over which the Federal Government has jurisdiction," as Mitchell observed, recorded a 16% decrease in serious crime during the first half of 1971. Trouble is, the gains Mitchell reported are like a set of cooked corporate books—deceptive.
A more balanced assessment of crime trends would have to take into account some less agreeable FBI statistics. They report, among other things, a 17% increase in violent crimes in the suburbs during the first six months of this year. They also indicate what Mitchell did not say, that most of the nation's largest cities showed increases in at least one of the four categories of violent crime; two of the cities—New York and Philadelphia—registered increases across the board. Washington, which Mitchell singled out for special praise, had more murders and rapes during the first half of the year than in the same period of 1970, while robberies and assaults declined only slightly. What principally accounted for crime reduction in the District of Columbia were substantial decreases in property crimes: burglary, larceny and auto theft.