But? "But then decreases in crime rate are most likely to be caused by a host of complex socio-economic factors".
One member of the group I was talking with said he had been extremely interested to learn that there had been a marked decrease in crime — particularly crimes of violence — in Montgomery's Negro community since the passive-resistance movement began there.
The years have brought unprecedented economic growth; a startling decrease in crime; the ebb of crack; the remaking of welfare; an influx of immigrants; a city drive to redevelop the housing stock under its control; and the rise of neighborhood organizations focused on restoration.
"There's a puzzling gap between the scale of the demographic and policing changes," he wrote, "and the scale of the decrease in crime"; one way to make sense of the change was to think of social problems as "behav[ing] like infectious agents".
"The more you can do from a design perspective, the more participation you get from the community, the more likely you're going to see a decrease in crime," said Drew O'Connor, executive director of the Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods group.
The authors attributed some of the decrease in crime rates during the 1990's -- a development often credited to better policing methods -- to the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
That the decrease in crime appears to have happened independently of industrialization or economic growth seemed to suggest that an internal, psychological shift had taken place in attitudes toward crime.
"We think that without Condor it would be very, very difficult to continue the decrease in crime," Mr. Dunne said after a meeting of the Public Safety Committee.
