Ask any American what they think about crime in the country, and chances are they’ll say it’s getting worse. But here’s a bit of good news: The murder rate actually just fell to its lowest level in 70 years, while violent crime saw its steepest single-year decline since the FBI began keeping national estimates in 1936.
The truly strange part is that no one can fully explain why.
But Baltimore — a city long associated with the country’s murder problem — may hold one piece of the answer. In his latest Good News column, Bryan Walsh looks at several solutions that have helped drive shootings dramatically down. The data offers a hopeful lesson: We don’t need to solve the entire mystery of violence before we can start saving lives.
If you value journalism that invests real energy in exploring the ways that the world is actually getting better, consider becoming a Vox member.
—Paige Vega, editorial director
