This is a large topic, one that you need to look into deeply, it is also one of those topics where a misuse of statistics can obscure the realities underneath.

One thing that has been happening over time is people have been observing how things like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits can be used to create highly dense populations of poor people, and what impact that has on the surrounding area and the immediate community that live in this economic zone. Since about the late 1980s states across the country have been using Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs) to segregate the populations and consolidate the poor in central locations. A myth grew from this practice that Low-Income Housing brings crime, and that the poor were also predisposed to crime. That myth became a truth, a truth you could back up with statistics. You could look at a given area of Low-Income Housing and find a rise in crime, but this rise in crime and its statistics were falling short of WHY this was true.

The reality was, be it because of racism or classism or both, legislatures were placing LIHTCs in the same areas as the poor, over and over and over again, for decades. This caused those areas to grow and the economic diversity of those areas shrank. Middle income homes and apartments would get converted into Low-Income rentals that give the property developers and owners a huge kickback from the government. This would push out middle income earners to other neighborhoods, leaving only the poor left to live there.

When you concentrate all that poor, you no longer have a population that can drive economic growth in the neighborhood. They do not have the capital to operate their own business and run them locally where they live, and they do not have the disposable income to support local existing businesses. This pushes out things like independent grocers and other business that drive a healthy local economy. It also attracts predatory businesses like Pay Day Loan vendors and Pawn Shops, who exploit the local poor and earn a profit off their low economic status. Since there are no good jobs to fill in the area, the poor have to now commute to work, which adds to their overall expenses and pushes them further down the economic ladder and closer to desperation. As desperation rises because of their material conditions, so does the rise in crime. Desperate people do desperate things.

Major cities like Atlanta and Chicago underwent a restructuring of their Low-Income Housing in the early 2000s. Much of their Low-Income Housing was contained within old post WW2 project blocks. These were massive high rises that contained thousands of apartments, and over time they were teaming with poor. As they started decommissioning these structures, they redistributed the poor across their cities, not just into poor neighborhoods but into middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods. In doing so, they found, that crime not only didn’t go UP within the neighborhoods folks were moved to, but overall VIOLENT crime went down in both Atlanta and Chicago.

One thing to remember is that CRIME is something defined by the state, and as such, you have to ask the questions: “What kind of crime do these statistics talk about?” or “What does this person mean by crime?” because often it is not a full picture of crime in general. Some crimes are more tolerable than others. In the study I linked above, they have three metrics for crime:

Violent crime: aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, and robbery
Property crime: arson, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft
Gun crime: crimes involving handguns or other firearms—homicide, sexual assault, robbery, battery, ritualism, and assault

In general, these types of crimes have been going down steadily since the 1970s. One running “theory” believes there is a causal link between the decline in leaded gas use and violent crime. I think there could be a contributing factor there, but everything I noted above was also happening along the same timespan. I think we would have to perform more material analysis to know all the contributing factors for a consistently lowering crime rate.

Restructuring of public housing has helped to lower crime, but also consider another point of fact: Weed decriminalization has been going on steadily in the USA since the 1970s. This goes back to my point about CRIME being defined by the state. As weed becomes decriminalized and ultimately legalized for recreational use, the stakes involved with policing weed also drop significantly. The likelihood of police raids to bust growing operations decline as legal dispensaries incline. Citizens caught with weed in their car are given lesser sentences, are arrested less frequently, and subsequently charged with fewer CRIMES. Often times there are knock-on crimes that are attached to a possession charge, for example, if you had a gun in your car at the time. Given that desperate people turn to methods of relief like weed and other drugs to cope with their desperate situations, this puts these desperate people in the crosshairs of the cops, making the likelihood they do something desperate while getting caught higher.

These are only two examples of changes that have been slowly going on throughout the decades. They both have an impact on crime rates. I’m sure there are plenty of others in the comments to cover other aspects of this decline. One thing to always remember, though: Crime needs to be defined, and what you include and exclude as “crime” will alter your statistical analysis in whatever way you want.

It’s estimated that 90% of White-Collar goes unreported. The focus on “Violent Crime” in both the media and statistical analysis is a result of this. While this is moving off-topic a to a degree, there is a clear class divide within the justice system regarding the kinds of crimes that people are investigated for and ultimately tried and convicted of. It’s entirely possible that white-caller crime is up, but it would be difficult to know, since those kinds of crimes are seldom acted on.