Violent crimes are down in the U.S., but no one is sure why; violence peaked in the early 90s

Turn on any local news station or look up news sites online, and there will inevitably be numerous stories about murder, abuse, assaults and general mayhem. It seems that no town—big or small—is safe anymore from violent crime.

But the number of reported violent crimes in the U.S. has actually significantly dropped since peaking in the early '90s, Max Ehrenfreund reports for The Washington Post. While that's good news, the reason for the drop in crime varies depending on who you ask, and no one seems to know why less violence is occurring in the U.S. (Post graphic)

"It has confounded both those from the right who had predicted that waves of young predators would terrorize communities and those on the left who watched crime fall even through ups and downs in poverty and unemployment," Ehrenfreund writes. Various experts have also linked the fall in violence to the aging of the population, low inflation rates and even the decline in early-childhood lead exposure. But in the end, none of these factors fully explain a drop that occurred, in tandem, in much of the world." (Read more)