Noah Smith, Columnist

4 Ways to Cut Violent Crime in America

There are specific reforms that will make the U.S. safer. Gun control isn't one of them.

September 21, 2017 at 1:00 PM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

Marking the spot.
Photographer: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

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First, the good news -- the crime wave of 2015 and 2016 appears to have been a temporary blip, rather than the beginning of a dangerous new trend. According to a new report by the Brennan Center for Justice, homicide rates in cities are projected to fall by 2.5 percent this year. Overall, U.S. crime is approaching the lows of 2014, the safest year in recent decades.

But now, the bad news -- despite falling by about half since the early 1990s, violent crime in the U.S. is still very high compared to many other nations: