Recent US Trends: Crime down but domestic terrorism up

The FBI recently released a preliminary version of their annual crime statistics for 2009, and both violent and property crime have decreased significantly in the last year, all this in spite of an ongoing recession.

Yet preliminary crime figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 2009 show that the crime rate is falling across America, across all categories. Violent crime was down 5.5 percent and property crime down 4.9 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to FBI statistics released Monday.

In fact, crime in every category decreased, says FBI spokesman Bill Carter. Murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault all declined in 2009, he said. Robbery – which tends to boom in bust times – dropped 8.1 percent.

So, that's some great news reported by the CSMonitor, which also gives some potential explanations like an aging society and increased policing and incarceration. I find these explanations somewhat lacking, as I'm not sure how great of a change there was in these variables in the relevant time frame (2008 and 2009).

On the other hand, there has also been a lot of discussion over the past year about an increase in attempts and incidents of domestic terrorism. I cannot find any great sources to support such an increase, but certainly the topic has been more on the public's mind this year. There are basically two lines that this conversation has been following, which I never see overlap. One is a coverage of recent attacks perpetrated by homegrown jihadists, including the Fort Hood shooting and the sensationalized profiles of 'Jihad Jane.' The other side to domestic terrorism that we've heard a lot about is increases in rightwing extremism, under which could be classified the murder of abortion-provider Dr George Tiller and the intentional crashing of a plane into the IRS building in Austin. Homeland Security has increased efforts on domestic terrorism this year, and some polling indicates that Americans are more relatively more concerned about domestic terrorism than in 2002. Do any readers know of better sources for information on domestic terrorism?

NPR reports that repeat offenders are responsible for 90% of sexual assault on campus

In NPR's continued coverage of campus sexual assault, they bust myth that student rapists are making a one-time bad decision that gives administrators a "teachable moment" to reform young minds. In this latest installment they report on psychologist David Lisak's work. He has found an entirely different picture of campus rape from the one administrators choose to believe:

What Lisak found was that students who commit rape on a college campus are pretty much like those rapists in prison. In both groups, many are serial rapists. On college campuses, repeat predators account for 9 out of every 10 rapes.

And these offenders on campuses — just like men in prison for rape — look for the most vulnerable women. Lisak says that on a college campus, the women most likely to be sexually assaulted are freshmen.

"It's quite well-known amongst college administrators that first-year students, freshman women, are particularly at risk for sexual assault," Lisak says. "The predators on campus know that women who are new to campus, they are younger, they're less experienced. They probably have less experience with alcohol, they want to be accepted. They will probably take more risks because they want to be accepted. So for all these reasons, the predators will look particularly for those women."

NPR's ongoing coverage has been a true eye-opener for me, and I hope more people tune in. I am left, unfortunately, with a cynicism for college administrators. It's possible that they are simply naive idealists, but I suspect they have known for a while about this situation. Universities are harboring criminals through their administrative disciplinary procedures, in which rapists are rarely even expelled, no less sent to jail where they belong, and it has got to end.

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: Oscar smear campaigns, just how pro-choice are we, three strikes, and more!

Jezebel and others are picking up the news of a "Hurt Locker backlash" now that the film has claimed front-runner status. What they point out, though, is that the strange timing of the attacks makes it likely that one of Hurt Locker's rivals for best picture are behind the attacks.  James Cameron is still friendly with Kathryn Bigelow, so he seems an unlikely candidate.  That leaves the team behind Inglorious Bastards, the same ones that managed to engineer a Shakespeare in Love victory over Saving Private Ryan.  Jezebel quotes S.T. VanAirsdale from Movieline:

I'm not about to second-guess anyone in Iraq. But I'll totally second-guess the editors who seem to have left the "Additional reporting by Harvey Weinstein in Baghdad" credit off the LA Times story.

Really?  An Oscar smear campaign?  Let Matt Damon explain it to you.