A GENERATIONAL CHANGE

In nineteen seventy four,  Charles Bronson starred in a surprise hit film called Death Wish, which was about a peaceful man who goes full vigilante in New York City after the killing of his family.  The film's endorsement of the man's violent behavior,  as he becomes a folk hero to the city and is secretly admired by the police, seemed to tap into the attitude of both the people of New York and of the country at large.  Violent crime seemed to be out of control at that time, and movies that celebrated heroes who got tough fighting against it, like Death Wish, Dirty Harry and The French Connection, ruled the box office.  In twenty eighteen, Hollywood released a remake of Death Wish starring Bruce Willis; it flopped at the box office.  A story that had seemingly once captured the nation's collected fears and frustrations was now seen as out of the touch, with the only vigilantes capturing the nations's interest being the ones in superhero movies.
There has clearly been a generational change in our country's attitude towards violent crime for a very simple reason: the rate of violent crime has been consistently dropping since the mid nineteen nineties.  While there are a number of factors as why this is, there is one pet theory (that I've already blogged  about here ) that makes the most sense to me: lead removal.  In the sixties, the dangers of babies being exposed to lead fumes from paint and car exhaust led the government to begin a program of lead removal, with most communities becoming lead free in the nineteen eighties.  The drop in crime that started in the nineties happened because you had children growing up not being poisoned by lead, which causes both a drop in IQ and a reduction in the development of impulse control, and therefore less likely to become criminals.  I first wrote about this theory over six years ago, and as time has passed I've come to believe it more.  Especially when you consider that Chicago, a city that still has a problem with violent crime, is also one of the few cities in the US that still uses lead pipes for its drinking water, becoming the exception that proves the rule.

This drop in violent crime has lead to a generational shift in this country, with young people growing up in  less violent world and being less worried about it.   This is part of the reason why so many young people are joining in the Black Lives Matter protests against police violence. Unlike their parents, they don't understand  or accept the violent behavior of the police because they don't see violent crime as out of control. 
And they have every right to protest, because the falling violent crime rate has not resulted in changes in the police's behavior; if anything, it has gotten worse in the past few years, with more cops being outfitted in surplus army gear, looking more and more like soldiers, and wielding weapons like assault rifles, and yes, even grenade launchers.
So yes, with violent crime on the wane, it is time to start defunding the police budgets and spending that money on homeless shelters, drug addiction centers and mental health facilities, all of which will cause a reduction in crime without increasing violence.  And also on continued removal of lead, because it is still a problem, and one that, according to a twenty seventeen report by the department of House and Urban Development, is one that is far more  likely to affect children of color.
The good news is that the recent protests really do seem to be sinking in with the American public, with polls showing more and more approval for changing the police departments.  Will this attitude hold?  Will real change take place?  Only time will tell, but for now, it looks like the Black Lives Matter movement has really arrived.