Concerning the Golden Age of the 1950s

It is often thought that the golden age of life, perhaps the American Dream and American Life, was in the 1950s. Otto T Goat recently sarcastically stated:

Except for the low crime, the booming economy, and the superior culture, the 50's were a nightmare.

I replied as follows:

Wow, totally naive understanding of crime stats. In the UK, for example, rape was legal within marriage until the 1990s, and is only now getting more accurate reporting (still falling very short).

Moreover, violent crime, robbery, domestic burglary, theft of motor vehicles, drug trafficking etc. in the UK is not comparable post-2002 with pre due to better and expanded data collection and definitions. This is the same with other EU countries and no doubt the US. See here for information on crime reporting in EU countries over time: http://ec.europa.eu/eurosta...

Data from 1950-1997 exclude criminal damage of £20 or under. From 1998 the figures are based on the new counting rules and are for financial years. They include all criminal damage.

Proper data on total offences from 1050-1977 simply does not exist. See Table 2.2 here (as well as 4.1): https://www.gov.uk/governme...

Other issues include the fact that the Home Office hasn't actually recorded a 'murder rate' for several decades, as since 1972 the crimes of murder, manslaughter and infanticide have been compiled to make a homicide rate. In 1998 the Home Office made a change to the way in which homicide was recorded by police, which had a significant impact upon the results produced. Whereas before 1998 multiple murders were considered as a single incident, afterwards each death was considered separately. In 2002, the figures included the 173 murders committed by Harold Shipman, whereas if these had been committed in 1964, they would have only counted as one incident for the purposes of the Home Office statistics.

Other things are worthy of note: that missing persons were not as well chased and recorded; that improvements in science lead to greater rates of detecting homicide (think DNA etc); that the whole range of police activities and success rates mean that comparing data is really very tricky.

The perception of crime vs reality is way out of kilter:

Government statistics show that, except for some small blips, serious crime has decreased almost every year from 1994 through 2013. For over a decade Gallup has found that the majority of Americans polled believe crime is up, contrary to the fact that crime rates have plummeted in almost every small and large city since the 1990s. This is not to say that all cities and areas are experiencing decreases in violent crime year after year, but the overall rate of violent crime is significantly lower than historic levels.

https://www.brennancenter.o...

Which is significant given the improvement in both reporting and data collection.

In other words, whilst I am not necessarily defending current rates of violence, to make such sweeping comparisons is totally naive. Add to that the notion that rape was legal in marriage, homosexuality was illegal, racism was overt and fully institutionalised and countenanced. For a great synopsis of the 1950s as the dark age for sexual criminality, see https://www.theguardian.com...

But all this will be water off a duck's back with you because you never take on any opposing arguments or thoughts and have shown yourself to be the least reflective person on these forums.

As a 2011 article stated:

Today, your chance of being murdered is lower than it was in the late 1950s, a time of enviable peace and order. Robberies have been cut by more than half since their peak. Car thefts are about as common as they were when the Beatles first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." It's an understatement to say we didn't see this coming. Back in the 1990s, when crime was at horrendous levels, experts told us things would only get worse. Princeton University criminologist John Dilulio warned of "a sharp increase in the number of super crime-prone young males." Northeastern University professor James Alan Fox said the coming crime wave "will make 1995 look like the good old days." As it happened, lawlessness had already begun to retreat. The homicide rate, which in 1991 reached a level of 9.8 murders for every 100,000 people, sank to 5.5 in 2000. Aggravated assaults diminished by a quarter between 1991 and 2000. Burglaries declined by 42 percent. You would think such a welcome trend couldn't last, but it has. And the crime statistics may actually understate the improvement. Despite the recent sharp decline in sexual assault, the FBI puts the forcible rape rate at three times higher than in 1960. But rape data — unlike homicide, which usually leaves a corpse behind — are notoriously susceptible to the willingness of victims to come forward. Today, compared to 50 years ago, women are undoubtedly more likely to go to the cops after an attack, and cops are more likely to take them seriously. So the actual rate of rape may be far lower than it was then.

http://articles.chicagotrib...

I thought I'd repost my comment here to start a discussion along these lines. It is what Steven Pinker has dealt with in The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes and the subject pops up often. I'm sure there was a lot to like about the 1950s, but there were, no doubt, many caveats and things are always more complex than throwaway statements.