Former Attorney General Bill Barr cites three significant and startling statistics that every American concerned by rising crime needs to confront.
Wall Street Journal commentary by former Attorney General Bill Barr
First, Americans must recognize that while the impact of criminal violence is widespread, its perpetrators represent a tiny fraction of our total populace. This “small, hard-core group of habitual offenders constitute roughly 1% of the overall population but commit between half and two-thirds of predatory, violent crime.”
As a result, from 1991 to 2013, the total prison population in the U.S. doubled – from roughly 800,000 to 1.8 million. At the same time, violent crime plummeted, dropping for 23 years. By 2014, it had been cut in half – to a level not seen since 1970 – and homicides of black victims were down by about 5,000 a year.