of violent crime has increased 371 percent since 1960 --- that's
* nine times faster than our population has grown. In the past 30 years,
* homicides have nearly tripled; robberies and rapes each are up over 500
* percent; aggravated assaults have increased more than 600 percent."
*
* Crime is a white-hot public issue that has been shamelessly exploited by
* cynical leaders for their own political and administrative advantage. Here
* is how these callous manipulators have used the gut-level fears of the
* American people for their own purposes. The rhetoric of crime in the
* United States is in many ways more important than crime itself. [Most
* of this STUNNING chapter not shown: buy the book!]
*
* Hard, consistent and detailed knowledge about crime has been gathered
* by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, part of the
* Justice Department. Under this program, twice a year, 50,000 Americans
* are asked dozens of detailed and probing questions about their experience
* with crime.
*
* This procedure is considered highly reliable...and every year they publish
* an authoritative annual report summarizing criminal victimization.
*
* Consider, for example, rape, robbery and felonious assault, the nation's
* most widespread crimes of violence. These are terrifying events that
* legitimately generate serious public concern about both personal safety
* and the overall quality of life in the United States.
*
* In 1992, the most recent comparable year that is available from the
* Census Bureau, has a startling comparison to twenty years before.
*
* Regarding rape, robbery and felonious assault:
*
* In 1992, 15.