>You know crime in the USA has actually fallen a lot recently?

He's talking about late 50s, early 60s. We're not there yet. (NYC used to be safer than London. Yes, same time.)

The late 60s had a huge crime jump in the US. The 70s were even worse. We're working back from that.

Trust me, I'm oddly familiar with the country this used to be. Go back and read some primary sources - there are a lot here:

http://unz.org/

Crime statistics in the USA have actually fallen a lot recently. What's your explanation of this? You didn't by any chance watch The Wire? You don't by any chance read the New York Times?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/nyregion/no-room-for-disse...

The former captains spoke of an unrelenting, often unethical pressure to manipulate crime statistics. In addition, the professors studied police and health data and found weird divergences. City hospital data shows a 90 percent increase in emergency room visits for assaults from 1999 to 2006. But police data for the same period records a nearly 50 percent decrease in assaults.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodharts_law

> The former captains spoke of an unrelenting, often unethical pressure to manipulate crime statistics. In addition, the professors studied police and health data and found weird divergences. City hospital data shows a 90 percent increase in emergency room visits for assaults from 1999 to 2006. But police data for the same period records a nearly 50 percent decrease in assaults.

A friend offered this: "Clearly the hospitals are just padding their books so it looks like they'll need more funding."

You use this phrase "trust me" more than is probably warranted in this circumstance.