Quote:
Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
3. No, its not. The entire unraveling of the social fabric in this country at the hands of government has been a gigantic step backwards. Murders: up. Jail population: up. Government expenditures: up. Abortions: up. Teenage birthrate: up. Thank God for activist judges and the silver-spoon cheering section.
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Giant step backward? You really are glum about the world, aren't you?
Murder: According to a Justice Department report called
Homocide Trends in the US, homicide rates recently declined to levels last seen in the late 1960's. I'm not sure if they included 9/11 in their numbers.
Abortion: According to the CDC, who has been monitoring legal abortions since 1969, the
number of abortions in the US has been declining, and this is not accounting for changes in the population size.
In a November 2003, MMWR article interpreting the data from 2000 the CDC reported that "From 1990 through 1997, the number of legal induced abortions gradually declined. In 1998 and 1999, the number of abortions continued to decrease when comparing the same 48 reporting areas. In 2000, even with one additional reporting state, the number of abortions declined slightly."
Incarceration: The rate has increased significantly since 1980, but it appears that it is leveling off.
Source:
Bureau of Justice Statistics
ETA on the government expenditures: I'm still looking at deficit and surplus numbers, but preliminarily it looks like federal outlays as a percent of GDP have been falling considerably since 1990.
