book t.v. is the only national network devoted to non fiction books. television, for serious readers. >> note book t.v., books about criminal justice, next, perry discussions reduction over violent crime, and, compares prison systems, in her book. and then, elizabeth bid on the rise of mass incarceration and, writes about the homicide unit, in his book parks good month for murder. in an interview, he writes about his own experiences in prison

and his book rioting my wrong. >> what's behind the trend and how long it might continue. he was interviewed by samuel, of the urban institute, on book's t.v. afterwards. that is hour. >> with high profiles, spikes in violence, in milwaukee, chewing, washington, dc, the question and the issue of violent crime has acquired a national interest, and, he has written a new book the rise and fall of violent crime. what inspired you to reinvestigate the issue of

violent crime? >> no one had really, studied, in a comprehensive way, the history of violent crime and, i felt that that needed to be done especially because as we both know the violent kriem rates had skyrocketed in the late 60's, and became a major concern for the entire nation for the next several decades. two-and-a-half decades. so, i felt, given the significance of violent crime, and the postwar periods a major work that needed to be done. >> now you do something really unique. most people when they talk about violent crime they start in the 60's, and 70's. you start your story, 1940s. what made you decide that you wanted to take a longer

perspective on violent crime? >> well, when i wrote the manuscript i went back eastern further than that, but they only decided to publish the periods from the 1940s, and the period within the memory of people who were still alive. but i feel that to really understand violent crime, and, most major phenomena, one has to go back in time and see how things developed, and that's true with crime as well. because i have learned, that, crime has its up questions and downs, and there are good reasons for it, and without a historical perspective, one just can't really fully grasp that. as you well know, many studies, are what they call cross sex aisle analysis sees, and they'll study a years' worth of crime.

they don't give you a broader perspective. before we get into the story of crime, in america, let's set of stage. what is violent crime? >> well they deaf it as four different crimes. murder, but of course that could be treated as manslaughter, if there are certain element he was crime present or not present. so, together, we might refer to those as criminal homicides. that's one crime. and then, rape, of course is considered a violent crime. assault is the third one.

and usually we're interested in what most states call aggravated assault, where you have serious bodily injury and that would be the third. robbery is the final one, although robbery is somewhat of a hybrid because there's a property motivation that is theft, and it's a combination of theft and violence. so, some people might include other things, for instance, kidnapping. or some might include arson which could obviously cause death or injury. the crime minnolgist don't include kidnapping, because there's so few instances of it and don't include arson, because it is mainly a property crime with people destroying the property, as they collect on

insurance. so, let's get right into it, in the 1960s, and 70s, we see this huge spike in crime. what drivers this increase? >> i think this is probably the biggest sustained increase in violent crime in the country's history know that it fits that description going back to the late 19th century. i didn't delve into that, so i am not as confident when i say it's probably the worse in american history. but it probably is. why did it happen? i think there were three major factors, and one can always point to some subsidiary events. but it is good to "pick three."

first you have a major might min of a high crime culture, that is, a group of people who engage in violent crime in, at very high rates. in this case, it was african-americans, who migrated to the cities of the north as part of the great migration. now it has to be understood that this crime is intra mural. black-on-black crime. it arises, in the south, where they were enslaved and where they were treated very badly because of the jim crow racist system that developed in our history. but african americans, in the

south, in part, influenced by whites in the south, developed a culture of violence, in dealing with insult, personal disagreements, arguments, and quarrels. and the use of violence was common in the south and was common amongst whites and blacks. and, this resort violence to resolve interpersonal conflict migrateed north. now, it was good. it was a great positive benefit to african-americans, who moved away from the jim crow system, who made tremendous gains in

terms of income, and work opportunities, who shed the back breaking labor of the sharecroppers, in the south. and, who really inspired the great civil rights movement of the 60's. but, there was also this high rate, as i say of interpersonal violence, which was, the negative side of the great migration. and it was transported, north, with the black population that moved north. this was as massive migration in the 1960s. about 800,000 african-americans, moved out of the south to the north and also, to the west coast. in the next decade, a mal-and-a-half, so, this was quite a major migration.

so, unfortunately, and there's a lot of reluctans to deal with this issue, this does bring violent crime to northern cities, and is a big factor in the rise of violent crime. the other two big factors, and, they relate to this, were demographics. the baby boom, cohort, came of age, reached their best years in the late 60's and in the 1970s. so, those years are roughly 18 late 20. for meals, especially, this is

when we expect peaks in violence and violent crime. as is well-known we this bunch budger. they had families and they reached their years in the late 60's, and early 70s. and this was true for blacks and whites. now that alone would not be enough to explain the violent crime amongst this group. but something happened where, crime became what we might call a contagioagain, where young people copy.

we have this crime, and this contagioagainst crowes like wildfire when the crime boom reaches the tipping-point and explodes the criminal justice system is caught flat-footed. it is swamped. it is the swamping of the system that provides the third major element in the great crime tsunami. what happened was, the police started arresting fewer people, we know the numbers.

we could see when we look at the clearance rates, the arrests, per complaint for each crime, we see that the numbers go down in the late 60s, while crime is rising. and then, the convictions, per, let's say case charged, go down and the prison commitments per conviction, actually begin to today mininitial and the crime served per conviction goes down. so, while crime is going up, imeld respect the system to respond to that by arresting more people, and giving them longer sentences, the opposite is happening, the system is caving. it's collapsing. it can't handle the sudden and

massive increase in crime. the poor. >> i want to focus in on this question of norms and culture of violence, that you mention. where does this come from? >> well it's very important because, we don't want to be understood as making a biological argument or again net particular argument, no one believes that. i don't believe that.

so what then accounts for some groups, engaging in more crime than others? well, if it isn't a again net particular explanation, there must be some other and that's where values and norms, what we call culture enters n. so culture can be viewed as the values after distinctive group, and some would add the behaviors of this group. i wouldinclude over a firly long period of time. when a group begins adhering to certain values and when it lead foes certain types of behaviors, we say that's the group's culture. now poor people do the

overwhelming a. violent crime. some poor groups do more, even though they are poor, their adverse a tees may be comparable, but crime rate not. but we can't. so that led me to conclude there must be cultural differences between the groups.

and, this is a world-wide phenomenone. i came across a article by an english crime minnolgist. and he were talking about caribbeans, and, asians in england. he said, well they are empoverriched and their situation, is roughly comparable to the afro-caribbean. but they have much higher homicide commission rate. i found other examples, so that it seems some groups facing

similar adverse takeys do more violence than others. that's where i think, culture must enter in. there must be something about the values of the group, the behaviors of the group over time, that lead them to engage in more violent crime than other groups. i'm only interested in violent crime. >> when you think about this culture, in the united states, in the south, where you see the start of the great migration, where does this violent culture come from? can we begin to trace that? >> that's fascinating, i came across a book by fisher, called albion seed.

it was the name for what is called the uk. this book traces the migrations from england, to the united states, in largely the 18th century. and fisher points out, that some of the migrants from england, especially, from a distinctive part of evening -- england were a very aggressive group of people. unlike their brethren from other parts of england. the very aggressive group, from the borderlands between england and scotland came roughly to the area, around pennsylvania and

then migrating south to georgia. whereas the other groups, tended to migrate for new england. and he went onto describe the norms and values, of this group that came from the border lands, and ended up in the south. well, it turns out they were a rather violent lot. they were very sensitive to insults. they tended to take the law into their own hands to impose retribution on those viewed as outlaws and deserving of punishment. so they engaged in a lost lynching, street justice, and

this became, so fisher claimed, the southern culture of violence. this, it seems, grew in the south and developed in the south among white southerners. so it is my hype po though sis that this is the origin of the southern culture of violence. >> disputes or insults. these disputes are also resolved violently. this became a way of behaving, in the south, for it seems at least one, if not two centuries

or more. in fact, there are works written, in the late 19th century which compared the murder rates in the south, and the murder rates in new england. it has been true that new england land's murder rates are much lower than the murder rates in the southern states. so it is my argument that, this is the origin of this southern culture of violence. it is sometimes referred to as a honor culture which sounds a little, i don't know, old-fashioned. what they mean is, that, people are easily o -- offended, very sensitive to slightest.

and they will defend their honor. so this culture of honor develops in the south. it is my contention that african america's, who were slaves in the south and remained in the south. 90% of the population lived in the south throughout the 19th century, and into the early decades. the great migration begins the fun of the century but accelerates in the 19 230es, and then in the 1940s. african-americans, developed because of the influence of their white neighbors, this

honor culture, this culture of violence and it's my claim, that, because of the jim crow system, because of the racist practices in the country, because blacks were not permitted to advance, to middle-class until really, late in the 20th century, this culture of violence is perpetuated throughout the 20th century, in the lower income african-american community. so, that is why, when we have the migration this group to the northern cities, that's why we have this transportation of violence with that group. >> now, one of the other things you mention, when talking about the culture of the south, you quote, in such regions where the state has little power, and citizens have to create their

own system of order, this means, the rule of doing this, the rule of retaliation. can you talk about what the relative lack of control of the state might have contributed to it? >> in the south, especially in the rural areas, they had no policing. and i notice most of the lynchings, took place in rural areas. never in cities. because there were no police. so, if you had an area where there are no police, you have a much greater likelihood of people taking the law into their own hands. lynchings. so this is what happened in the south. the south remains largely rural. the big cities were never as big as they were in the northeast. the immigration.

the immigrants from europe sell dem went south. so, this really fed into this call ever sure of taking the law into your own hands, and engaging in violence to respond insults, perceived or real. and that's where this honor culture takes root more in the south. >> a times reporter wrote a book called ghetto side, she argued that there was up to today, this culture of state indifference, to violence, in the african-american community. do we see something driving the culture, where the state neglect

also contributeses to this retribution, the need to act, where the state has abandoned you. >> yes, i read her book. i noticed she focuses most on black victimization, without looking at the offenders and you need to look at both sides. i suppose there is an under policing, and there is a claim that there is a over policing in black communities.

that's traditional waive handling things. if you are insulted, you take care of business. you resort to violence. often times, young men are members of gangs. so you have quarrels between gangs. this is just an extension of this kind of violence. i don't think this is a matter of the lack of policing, to tell you the truth. i think it is just that, that's the way things are done. that's all. they have always been done that way. so, i wasn't in full agreement with with the point. i wasn't in full agreement with her point.

in fact, i note that, where police made more arrests, of let's say homicide perpetrators, and the clearance rate used to be much higher, the arrest rates, that is, black crime didn't go down. in fact it went up. so, i'm not persuaded that, more aggressive policing, with respect to very serious assault of crime would really change this culture of violence. so can i go off on another issue slightly different? what will change, this culture? what does change it? i think once a people advance to the middle class, this changes the culture.

because once you move to the middle class. this applieses to any. once they move to the middle-class they develop very strong disincentives to violence. you would lose your family, your job, and you would be a par rye an inyour community. if you don't have a lot of lucrative opportunities, ahead of you, then you don't have a lot of disincentives to violence.

that's why it is the young low income male that's most likely to engage in this violence, and be a part of this culture. so, i think the cure, for this culture of violence is the movement to the middle class. by the way, this is not just spec -- speculation. when i studied, it, the pre-19 40s, periods i saw very high crime rates, among mexicans who came in 1920, and, south they were italians who came, in 1900 and 1910.

the italians melted in the melting pot. they moved to the middle-class. they moved up the ladder, and, of course, they shed their involvement with violent crime. this also happened to the irish who had very high rate of violent crime in the 19th century. once they were able to move to the middle class their culture of violence is aban donned, because it would ill serve them now, be destructive and so, i believe as we dismantle our racist practices, in this country and we have gone a long way, towards doing so.

as we continue to do so, and as african-americans, become more middle-class, this discussion that we have, about high rates of violent crime will simply not be made any longer. it will be a discussion of something out of history. >> so, let's get into why crime tumbles. because as you note in the 1990s, we see a decline in crime, why? >> what are the factors that lead to this? >> it was sudden and dramatic, as sudden as the rise in crime. crime begins to fall in the early 1980's, and i think that happens because the baby boom

generation. they began aging out. it is a well-known phenomenon. since young men roughly as we said, 18 to late 20's or early 30's, at the most engage in most violent crime. as they age, as they move into middle 30s and beyond, they begin to retire from violent crime. so what happens is the baby boom generation, begins to age out in the early 80s. and my hypoththough sis is, crie would fall except for a new

phenomenon that threw a monkey wrench and that was the crack cocaine. that becomes the new contagion. it takes place in the late 1980's. continues, to the early 1990s, and when the crack cocaine epidemic ends, 1993, 1994, the crime rates continue to fall and they keep on falling. we have a new crime trough, a new low period. >> now, you say that we have this, mini bubble created by the crack cocaine. why doesn't this take us skyrocketing again? what disrupts this trend? >> it did skyrocket crime.

the late 80s, and early 90s. were awful. why doesn't it continue? that's what's fascinating. this is another contagion. this is another phenomenon where young people, who tend to copy behavior, so young people, begin with this confinal again relates to concontain use. they may know that it is so destructive, the addiction, the disease, the likelihood of being arrested, the shooting that take place. all of these negatives are

perhaps intellectually known to the young people but it doesn't matter. because everyone is doing it, it's cool. it's copied. therefore, it becomes a contagion. it reaches a tipping-point. this cocaine business is responsible for a major spike in crime. why? because first of all, the people who become addicted to the cocaine, in its crack form, so-called, where you have by a cooking process, the creation of little pellets of cocaine -- mixed with other things. these little pellets when heated give off a vapor and the vapor gives the euphoria, that the cocaine user craves.

this is extremely intense wears off in maybe ten minutes or so and then there's a craving for another. now, if you are poor, and crack cocaine caught on, in the poor neighborhoods because it was sold in small amounts. sold for $2, $5, and poor people could afford it and then they become hooked. so, if you are poor, and you need, you have this craving for more of the cocaine, how are you going to get it? so you could see where we're going with this. the males started engaging in robberies. violent crime. deaths, thefts, the females being less violent did things like, nonviolent thefts.

prostitution, whatever they needed to do, to raise the money for more cocaine. so, the cocaine epidemic really stimulates robberies and assaults, and muggings. the other thing it causes, are murders and drag rate ised assaults. why? they can't complain, this other guy be this gang is imposing on my territory. make him stop. this is not going to work with illegal substances. we saw the same phenomena in the

1920s, the alcohol gangs did the same kind of thing. they started killing one another. so these murders, and assaults, when it was ineffective, when they didn't kill the guy but just seriously wounded him spiked the murder rate and i should say these were very young people and they were well arymed. they had guns which they obtained, illegally. so, this was a deadly combination, and you could see why this caused crime to go through the roof, why you add major spike in crime in the late 80s, and early 90s. that really snuffs out the trough.

by the early 1990s, i guess because law enforcement had toughened, up because people were dying from the he could contain use, they were overdosing. it is a very potent drug, you could get heart disease and disorders could arise out of cocaine use. because many were now being arrested, the criminal justice system had toughened, up since the 1960s, and many were arrested and sent to have prison. many were shot, wounded or killed because of the cocaine wars. so, suddenly, cocaine became

uncool. [laughter] >> it became, it struck the youth, that this was a path to destruction. as i say, they always knew it but we add we add contagion in reverse. youth began to copy the abandonment of cocaine. this is not just speculation. there was a study, in man hat ten, where the urine tested, the people who were arrested, and they found out, of course, what their age was. and they determined, through urine testing, what drugs there were using, if any. and what they found was, that, those were older, had been using heroin which was the drug of

choice before cocaine. those who were younger, had been using cocaine and passed a certain year, the cocaine use dropped off, dramatically. each by people who were arrested. so, we know, that the cocaine use was declining dramatically, 1993, 1994. that's exactly when the crime spike begins to ebb. >> now, explaining the crime drop is probably one of the most popular past times. and two of those popular explanations, are of course, legal abortion played a important role in bringing crime down. the reduction in theoff ledded gasoline, brings it down. what do you think about these theories?

>> i don't think they're correct. the problem, and there were criticisms that i have seen, especially of the abortion studies, and good criticisms, because they had to backtrack on somethings. but i think there's a bigger problem. the argument is this, abortion of course wasn't legal until the mid 1970s. when it became legal, a lot of unwanted babies were never born because women aborted.

now, there's a premise here, and the premise is, that had these unwanted babies, been born, and had they lived and had they reached the criminal years, 18 to late 20s, it's more likely that they would have engaged in criminal activity. so since they were aborted and didn't live, there were fewer people to engage in crime. that's the abortion theory. so, ifabortion becomes legal, and add, 18 years to that periods that correspondencesponds with the mid 1990s, when crime falls.

but that same cohort of people, with lots of abortions, reducing this population also lived through the period of the cocaine crime rise. so yoins how could it be that this same generation shorn of the people who were unwanted, can engage in lots of crime, in the late 80s, and early 9 the 50's and be responsible for the crime rise and the crime decline which happens a few years later? this involves the clean air act which was passed in the 1970s, which forced the removal of lead

from gasoline which was a great health benefit. well it turns out, that lead in the bloodstream is associated with aggressive behavior and maybe with crime. so the argument, is that, if you have people who now have less lead in their bloodstream, they will engage in less crime. so add, 18 years to the clean air act, and you have a drop in crime. but, again, the same people who were blessed with less lead, in their bloodstream also were putting cocaine in their bloodstream and engaging in a lot of violent crime in the late 80s, early 90s. so i think these two theories, are probably interesting but

flawed. >> provactive but flawed. we've seen the headlines, and this crime, may now be at an end? what do you think about those arguments? >> it may be. we don't know. criminologygists are cautious because we know, we have to see a trend. when i looked at the latest homicide figures for the ten biggest cities in the country, i looked back to 2010. let's at least look at the last five years. the last knife because we didn't

have any data past 2015. when i looked at the last five years, i didn't find that crime in fact was higher, it was lower. or at least homicide was. so we need a trend, before we are going conclude that the trough is over. alternatively, i would want to see some of the signals, the red flags, the kind of phenomena we saw at least in earlier periods when crime rose. so, i don't only look at the figures, for one year or two years or three years, the crime figures. i want to see some of the other red flags as well and i don't see them. for instance, do we have a

demographic, that's indicating we're getting more young people, more people, in the high crime years? no. the population is aging. older people are into the crime threat. are we seeing a migration or immigration of groups with high rates of violence, honor cultures? >> no, i don't see that. yes, there's still the illegal migration of mexicans, and, yes, they do tend to have high crime rates.

but, it seems to be manageable. i don't see anything growing out of proportion. plus, i think we're reaching a political consensus that the border does have to be closed off. we can't keep on with the situation where, people can enter the united states illegally. i think both the left and right, are reaching a consensus on this. so, i don't see the immigration, migration of high crime groups. those immigrants who are coming in, to the country, that say, the asian population, or the eastern european population, have rather low crime rates. so, if anything, they're contributing to stability of crime rates. not threatening to raise those

rates. and certainly the criminal justice system has been strengthened and toughened, although i think we reemped a consensus that it's too punitive and needs to be relaxed a bit and made less punitive. so, i don't see a lot of red flags. so, does that mean that these spikes are not a harbinger of high crime rate says in no, i wouldn't be so foolish enough to say that because i remember ralding an essay by daniel bell, who was one of the leading intellectuals of the 60's, and

he wrote a wonderful there was no crime problem. we have a gang problem but that's not to be taken seriously. there may ab black crime problem but it isn't racial or again net particular. so not worry. there may be a problem with organized crime but that doesn't threaten the average person. so all told there's no crime problem. well, we the huge crime tsunami and it was masscy. he didn't see it come. is he i won't say no.

we need to be vigilant. >> now, one thing you talked about earlier, that sentencing reform in the 1990s, the justice system building its capacity really helped bring the crime rate down. sentencing, in the vogue now, with the task force releasing their recommendations. what do you see as the potential impact of this? where will this will take our violent crime? >> first of all, i noticed, having read several books now, on mass incarceration, as it is called, and i wonder if it is really mass, since it only affects one-half of one per sent. i notice, there's no discussion of crime. it's fast, it just happened.

we engaged in this massive lockup of people, but there was no crime involved. i'm amazed at some of these books. i think they're only telling half the story. yes, there was a huge increase in our incarceration rates. no question about that. although we need to look, at the time served for crime. that's a better indicator of our incarceration system. in any event, this massive build up, in our system, definitely, add positive impact, in terms of crime reduction. just from the standpoint of

keeping people who were in prison, from preying against innocent victims, just from that standpoint alone, never mind deterrent, but just the fact that you keep, protect the population by locking people up, if there are thousands of people locked up and they have done very violent crimes and repeat them, that alone, has a proeningive and beneficial impact. so they have found that there is definitely, a positive relationship between incarceration and the decline of crime.

now, what risk then do we face if we make the system less punitive? my answer, it depends on what we do and how we do it. if we're going to reduce the incarceration of serious offenders, people who do violent crime, and well over half the people in prison have committed, violent crimes. only about 15% of those in prison have done drug crimes and roughly three quarters of that population have been drug traffickers. so it's a myth to say that some kid smoking a marijuana cigarette serves a long prison sentence. that's just not true. everything depends on how we do it. if we have reforms, such as,

reducing the isolation of young prisoners, keeping young prisoners were being placed in isolation for fairly long periods of time, i don't see this as a risk. i think that is beneficial thing to do. there are a lot of harm that could come from placing young people in isolation for long periods of time. so, i don't have any problem with that sort of reform. but if, we establish reform that doesn't impose long enough sentence's people who have done serious crimes, of either violence or non-violence. burglary, a very serious property crime, grand larceny,

arson is a very serious property crime. those folks need to be locked up, too. so, if we're going to engage in reforms, that make the system much less pun na turf for people who really deserve the punishment, i think that would be an error. i think weakening the criminal justice system could be a problem. there's a theory, about crime, violent crime cycles. it was developed by a crime historian, who is no longer with us. died just a few years ago. his theory was this, he said, that when you have a relaxation of social controls, he didn't defined what this meant but i take this could include, this to

include the criminal system, when you have a relax of social control, after a lag periods a few years, you will get an increase in crime. once these controls are put into pla again, this would include a toughening up, hardening of the criminal justice system. then you will a reduction in violent crime. the cycle of and continue, after the reduction takes place there will be pressure somewhere see these pressures now in our own time. there will