TheBurg

14 | theburgnews.com | 05.18 O n Dec. 28, 1990, in the final days of one of the most violent years in the 20th century, the Harrisburg Patriot-News ran an editorial mourning the American city. "Urban life in America is in the throes of a social meltdown," it read. "e symptoms of decay are everywhere. Violence has become an epidemic, and many major cities will set record rates of homicides this year." e image of an urban dystopia proliferated in the 1980s and 1990s, as American cities—abandoned by manufacturers, forgotten by policymakers and besieged by poverty—battled unprecedented levels of violent crime. At the turn of the 21st century, though, almost as quickly as crime rose, it began to fall. Violent crime has plummeted in almost every American city since 1990, with some cities, including Harrisburg, cutting their violent crime rates almost in half. Harrisburg recorded a violent crime rate of 2,191 incidences per 100,000 people in 1990; in 2014, it had fallen to 1,113, according to FBI crime reporting data. With the exception of homicides, almost every category of violent crime—robbery, burglary, assault, property crimes and motor vehicle thefts—has fallen by a similar magnitude. But why? Mayors, police chiefs and other students of crime data can say with certainty that cities have gotten safer since the great crime wave of the 1980s and 1990s. How it happened is a subject of more intense debate. Increased policing, prosecution and incarceration have contributed at least partially to the decline in crime, at a significant social cost. Researchers have pointed to other, non-intuitive societal shifts that could have curbed violent behavior, including increased access to abortion, decreased exposure to lead, changes in the economy and even the spread of psychiatric drugs. Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist and crime researcher at New York University, offers a more encouraging, hopeful thesis for why urban spaces have gotten safer. As the criminal justice system expanded and became more punitive, Sharkey says, another force began to coalesce in America's parks, streets and neighborhood centers. e people responsible weren't police officers or prosecutors, but ordinary residents. In his latest book, "Uneasy Peace," Sharkey calls these people the "new urban guardians." He says that local nonprofit groups successfully fought crime by building playgrounds, opening youth centers, organizing neighborhood watch groups and picking up trash. As they slowly reclaimed their neighborhoods, working long hours with little to no pay or recognition, these citizens made a crucial, but often overlooked, contribution to safety in American cities. "e changes that took place weren't just about the expansion of the prison system and the increasing aggressiveness of police," Sharkey said during a recent conversation at Midtown Scholar Bookstore, where reporters interviewed him about his research. "It was also a mobilization among the residents and organizations in the communities hit hardest by violence. at has been completely left out of discussions about why violence fell, but I think it's a crucial part that deserves much greater credit." How ordinary people played a role in the great crime decline. bY LIZZY hArDIson The New UrbaN GUardiaNs e Bethesda Mission Youth center has provided after school tutoring and other enrichment activities for children and teens since 1990. ey'll soon expand to another building to double their 75-student enrollment capacity.

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