Posted on 01/01/2015 1:17:04 PM PST by the scotsman
'Young people in the United States are safer than in the 1970s or 1990s, according to a long-term study.
Duke University's Child Well-Being Index has been recording the state of childhood in the US since 1975.
Children and teenagers are less likely to be victims of violent crime, while risky behaviours like binge drinking and smoking cigarettes are in decline.
But researchers say safer lives could also reflect the fact children spend much more time indoors.
This could also be linked to another big trend, the rise in childhood obesity, now almost four times more prevalent than in the 1970s.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
That part's probably true. Cars in general are much safer.
I remember that by the late 70’s hitchhiking became more dangerous. Lots of serial killers picked up their victims that way.
I like to ask people “who’s childhood would you rather have, yours or your kids?” I get interesting answers, but I’d estimate about 75% of people I ask say “mine.”
Wow... I forgot what it was like being a kid, growing up in NYC in the 60’s and 70’s. I would get up at 4am and a few of my 10 year old friends would walk the three miles to Sheepshead Bay at 5am to go snapper fishing off the piers. We had dirt ball and itchy ball fights, played ringalevio till all hours of the night or until moms started yelling from the windows for us to get home.
Every day was football, basketball, baseball or hockey at the park. A few of the brave kids would go on the swings, and try to jump off and get over the fence. Several had bones broken or got stitches from a miss. Funny, it taught us not to go half a$$ed.
Every day there was a fight at school. A bully would eventually get beaten up by the kid he bullied. For junior high school, I had to take a train. First day of 7th grade, David Elinsky walked in between train cars, the train bucked and he was thrown onto the tracks where he was electrocuted or run over by the train depending on who you asked. Never walked between cars after that.
Local police taught us how to properly light fireworks, despite the fact fireworks were illegal. Other kids parents brought us home after getting in trouble, usually holding an ear and yelling at us the entire way home. Father would thank the parent, take the kid by the other ear and continue the yelling.
Fun times.
Yes, crime has been on a steady downward trend and that includes crimes against children.
Now that cops and social services harass parents for letting their kids play by themselves in the neighborhoods, well, you get my point....
Yet PERCEPTION of crime has skyrocketed.
Yes, and so has perception of pollution. The facts still prove that both have dropped.
People are ignorant.
I long ago decided there is little I can do about that and so I just ignore them.
I sat up last night while the neighbors shot off fireworks in case they set fire to the neighborhood. When they first started, they were aiming toward our house so hubby told them what for and if they set the dry leaves on fire..... The idiots then aimed directly at their house instead of the, uh, hello, river. The idiots were grown adults with little kids.
Nor surprising, since lawn darts are essentially identical to the plumbata used by the later Roman legions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbata
I-40/I-25 ramps under construction in Albuquerque in the mid 60’s. Saw some hideous wipeouts. OUCH!!!
I walked to school every day from kindergarten, starting 1960, thru sixth grade.
Half mile through what we now call an inner ring suburb.
Although when I took my 13 year old daughter back to the old neighborhood she took one look, and with a horrified expression said, “Dad, you grew up in a slum!”
I remember 4 of us kids (7-8 years old) in the seat in my friends dads pick up, no seat belts obviously.
Dad turns left at the light at an intersection, the passenger door pops open and a kid goes spilling out into the middle of the intersection.
Dad gets out and smacks the kid in the head and tells him to quit being a dumbass and get back in the truck.
Those were the days...
I’ll call BS because any clown and it’s organization can write (lie) about anything they want without being held responsible.
LMAO! The next place up the road is a vacation cabin that is rented to some people from the city for the week-I could tell because like your neighbors, they were aiming their fireworks every place but toward the river, while the rest of the fireworks on the road were aimed at it-the weather is very wet and cold, and they were at least an acre away from anyone, but it still makes me nervous-as a kid, I was taught how not to start forest fires...
” $49.95 in 1951? http://www.westegg.com/inflation says that is equal to $442 in 2013. Yikes! How could the disadvantaged afford to get into home nuclear fission? “
Plutonium has never been cheap!
Was there a real increase in the danger of hitchhiking or simply an increase in the perception of its danger?
The problem is that without accurate statistics the question simply cannot be answered.
“Children and teenagers are less likely to be victims of violent crime,”
I don’t buy that part for one second. It is total nonsense. In the 70’s kids could roam free...No worries. You can’t allow that today unless you want a damaged or dead kid. It not even safe for adults to roam anymore.
One more thing. I believe the real purpose of articles like this is to give the false sense that the world is better under liberalism without God. Anyone who lived through those times knows that is a complete lie. If we could go back then it would be a godsend.
Especially in the suburbs - you’d think children living in rural areas would be just as safe now as they were thirty years ago.
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