The State and the Contemporary Decline in Violence

After a prolonged decline, violent crime in the West rose between the mid-1950s and the mid-1990s, and many commentators predicted that the rise would only keep going. They believed that violent crime was a symptom of a crisis of sovereignty for the state, which was under threat from outsourcing and privatization-a trend also predicted to continue. But as it happens, the privatizing of the police has since been checked by the failure of the private sector to convince as a credible alternative. Seizing the initiative, the state criminal justice system has increased in strength and scope and has reasserted its monopoly in legitimate coercive force. As a result, and confounding all expectations, violent crime fell throughout the 2000s and falls still.