Crime Occurs More Often In The U.S.

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Violent crime — ranging from homicide to robbery—occurs more frequently in the United States than in any other modern, stable nation in the world, according to a government report.

The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence said the United States is the “clear leader” in the number of homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults compared to its population.

“Our homicide rate is more than twice that of our closest competitor, Finland, and from four to 12 times higher than the rates in a dozen other advanced countries, including Japan, Canada, England and Norway,” the commission said in a 22-page report released Sunday.

Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, chairman of the commission, which was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, said poverty, not race, is the underlying factor in violent crime.

The commission said crime is “gnawing at the vitals of urban America” and the only hope for relief is in a massive billion-dollar rebuilding of the cities.

The commission said surveys already report half of the women and one fifth of the men in the nation fear to walk outdoors after sundown, and one-third of America’s householders keep guns.

As in several of its past statements, the commission singled out “glorification of guns in our culture and the television and movie displays of guns by heroes” for causing some violent crime.

Among the Commission’s recommendations were increased day and night foot patrols of slum ghettoes by interracial police teams; increased police-community relations in the ghettoes; increased experimentation with controlled drug programs so addicts need not rob; identification of specific violence-prone persons; and restrictive licensing of handguns.