Where I was at the time, hard drugs and gang warfare didn’t get noticeable untill ‘88 or ‘89. Maybe 87 at the earliest. And didn’t get bad until early 90s. There were still alot of highpaying unskilled jobs available to anyone that wanted them until probably the early eighties and didn’t dry up until I’d say the early nineties.
Also traffic didnt’ get bad until mid nineties. Illegal mexicans didn’t show up until nineties. Cops didn’t get bad attitudes until late eighties/early nineties...about the same time as the crime started to rise. Prostitution was rampant though, until maybe 15 years ago. Pot was rampant too and I assume it still is.
The only serious things I remember happening in the 80s was reagan pulling out of lebanon, the tylenol poisoning scare, paper boys were being abducted and molested and killed, Princess dianna having a baby, and the return of the american made convertible. Some people were having money problems as I remember. But it didn’t affect me or my relatives.
This was in Omaha. I don’t live there anymore.
Don't know about Omaha, but I do know that violent crime nationwide FINALLY started declining around 1993, and continued to do so until the recent uptick that began last year.