by The Public Agenda

About the author: The Public Agenda is a nonprofit organization devoted to research and education about public issues.

In the United States, which has long had the dubious distinction of being the most violent and crime-ridden industrial nation in the world, fear of crime is a constant concern. But even by American standards, current worries about crime are remarkable. By early 1994, polls showed that crime had risen to the top of the list of the nation’s most serious problems, replacing that hardy perennial, concern about the economy.

“More than any other issue,” writes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Haynes Johnson in his recent book Divided We Fall, “the growing specter of violence leads people to think that something fundamental has been broken in America. This is as true among blacks...