I grew up in a rural county in Alabama in the late 1960s and left in 1977. It’s safe to say that a quarter of the local population were in poverty or near it. Crime wasn’t a big deal and rarely did the local cop arrest anyone except for drunken driving.
Today? Same county has at least 300 meth-heads on a constant prowl to steal from neighbors or assault people for their cash. I’d take a guess that between the sheriff and the various town cops throughout the county....there’s at least sixty people arrested per week. Bad judgement, triggered by drug abuse...is the chief blame. Three years ago, we had some local guy who was killed by folks who’d heard the guy had sold his $20k boat and had the cash in his lakeside cabin. At least two of the punks will spend most of their lives in prison, for a random act of stupidity like this.
I grew up in a farming community where everyone was poor, everyone knew everyone else, and there was little crime.
Now that farming community is 98% Hispanic, a lot of them illegals, and is full of crime.