ABSTRACT
The first edition of this book was published in 1978. The changes in deviance and crime that have taken place in American society specifically, and the Western world more generally, have been remarkable and, in their confluence, unprecedented. Here, I have attempted to document and explicate them. Perhaps most notably among these changes is the fact that the rate of criminal behavior-to focus for the moment exclusively on the Index Crimes-has declined to a degree unknown since such records have been kept. Crimes such as robbery and motor vehicle theft have declined by more than half, and murder, rape, and serious assault, by roughly 40 percent.
