Those things happened in 1961, too. Since there was no 24-hour news cycle then, we just didn't hear about them so much.
The mind plays tricks about how one remembers the good old days. Most folks equate those "days" to childhood memories that were perceived as good while parents sheltered us from the bad.
They would have been in the local newspaper if they happened. And they never happened in the small city where I grew up.
Children were so safe on the streets they were allowed to go anywhere they wished on foot as long as they were home in time for the evening meal.
The only deaths I recall were from accidents. The pole on top of a swing set fell and hit the head of a girl in my elementary school and killed her. During the summer a boy dove into a shallow pool in a creek and hit a rock bottom, breaking his neck.
There were broken homes but they were rare. In one near me, a mother raised her four children allalone and worked to earn a living. She was not on welfare. She also took them to church and encouraged other neighborhood children to go to church. She had her hands full as her teen age bosy were rebellious and disobeyed her and she worried hey would get in trouble with the law — but they never did.
Teen pregnancies were very rare and hush-hush. And marriage was the norm and what people aspired to in order to have a happy life. Girls went away to have a baby and they did not get abortions, which were deemed to be murder by just about everyone.
Nearly every grown men worked and often moms worked, too. Hard work was a virtue and respected, as were all the other virtues taught by the church.
The world has gone to hell in a hand basket. There’s no question about it.