Getting Our Story Out

A Message From the President

By Alfonso Lenhardt, NCPC President and CEO

The headline writers and the alarmists would lead us to believe we may be losing the battle against crime. Looking at the September 2007 FBI report Crime in the United States, 2006, they would say that crime is up, that our cities are again rife with crime, that we can’t go out at night or even venture far from our homes, workplaces, or schools.
 
Yes, violent crime in 2005 and 2006 account for a 4.1 percent increase overall. Aggravated assault accounted for the majority of violent crimes, 60.7 percent. Robbery accounted for 31.6 percent and forcible rape accounted for 6.5 percent. Murder made up 1.2 percent of violent crimes in 2006.

These are frightening statistics. As human beings, we recoil at the suffering that human beings inflict on others. But these figures don’t tell the whole story. For the 10 years from 2006 back to 1997, violent crime has fallen 13.3 percent. That’s something that isn’t appearing in the headlines.

And there’s even better news when it comes to property crimes. Crimes in this category, which include burglary, larceny-theft, car theft, and arson actually decreased 1.9 percent from 2006 to the 2005 estimate and were down 13.6 percent when compared with the 1997 estimate.

In other words, this is no time to throw in the towel. We know what we need to do. We must rally the troops, create new coalitions, roll out and test new programs, and recommit ourselves to the principles of crime prevention. In the words of former Assistant Attorney General Regina Schofield, we know the country can’t arrest its way out of crime. And in our varied professions, we all know that crime prevention does work. But now, as funding becomes even more scarce, we must tell our story as never before. Securing new funding depends on it.

First, we must make sure that the headlines about rising crime do not obscure the work and success of crime prevention throughout our nation. We must get our story out there. Second, we must prove to our legislators and policymakers at every level that crime prevention works. Third, we must establish in the hearts and minds of the public and government officials what we all know—that crime prevention averts human suffering and saves money.
 
Let me touch on a subject that is going to be increasingly important as our search for funding becomes harder in the months and years ahead. People do not want to hear that crime prevention works just because we say it does. We will have to show them. We must build evaluation into each and every program, publication, and resource we develop and use. We will need to continue making the case—with hard numbers—that crime prevention takes time, but pays high dividends.
 
Let’s rise to the challenge and get our story—the real story of the success of crime prevention—out there.