Violence Is Dropping in Developed Nations

“The Copenhagen Consensus Center… puts the global costs of violence, excluding conflicts, at $9.5 trillion a year, equivalent to around 11 per cent of world GDP” (New Scientist, February 9, 2017). Encouragingly, “VIOLENT crime is on the retreat in most advanced economies. The latest US figures, for 2013, show that murder rates are lower now than in the early 1960s. In the same year, homicides in Japan hit a post-war low. In England and Wales the level of violence has dropped by 66 per cent since the latest peak in 1995” (ibid.). Reasons cited for the decline in violence include better law enforcement technology, more policing, and increasing societal revulsion of violent crime (ibid.). 

Yet, major reasons cited for the changing trends have to do primarily with enforcement and threat of consequences, not changes in attitudes or better education. Will Western nations become complacent with these positive trends (Revelation 3:17)? Will they now put forth less effort to lower crime rates more? (Keep in mind that the actual crime numbers are still very high.) Or, is this just a “slight healing” of the hurt of the people as they cry out “Peace, peace! When there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14)?

For more on the coming lasting peace prophesied to envelop the earth, be sure to view our telecast “The Way to Peace.”