The shocking conclusion of the Census Bureau survey is: 37 million serious crimes a year are being committed in the United States, more than three times the number reported. This amounts to seventy murders, rapes, assaults or various types of theft every minute, more than one a second!

Country after country is experiencing a similar crime wave. Of the situation in Italy, The Guardian reports: “It seems that there is no one in Rome who has not had a robbery in the family.”

The French newspaper L’Aurore says: “The climate here no longer is the same. In the subway at night honest people are no longer very relaxed. They hurry. . . . On the street they look over their shoulders frequently.”

Protection​—Quest of the Day

A principal concern of people has become their own safety, and that of their property. Typical is the comment of a New York City merchant: “I opened my business 30 years ago and worried only about profits; now my main worry is that I get through the day without being robbed or losing my life.”

In Louisville, Kentucky, a restaurant owner was robbed three times in six months, forcing him to hire armed security guards. “Paying for protection is what it boils down to,” he explains. Ordinary citizens, too, are taking similar measures, hiring private guards and buying all kinds of security devices.

One result has been a booming burglar-alarm business. There are reportedly nearly 6,000 manufacturers of protective devices in the United States, compared with only about 1,000 five years ago! Their yearly sales are estimated to exceed $1 billion.

Many homes have taken on the appearance of fortresses. Bars seal the windows, and spotlights illuminate the property. “I put the bars on my house,” a Detroit widow explained. “At first I felt a little closed in, but you get used to it.” It is a price more and more people are willing to pay.

Yet many people are also afraid to leave their homes, as one Californian noted: “You wouldn’t dare leave your home unprotected for very long in our city (pop. 25,000). A day doesn’t pass that someone isn’t cleaned out entirely.” So, in some cities, people pay a “house-sitter” to watch their home when they leave on vacation.

You may also be surprised to learn who commit most crimes. It is young people. In the United States last year nearly half (45 percent) of the serious crimes​—murders, rapes, robberies, and so forth—​were committed by youths less than eighteen years old. Children under fifteen commit more crimes than do adults over twenty-five.

Even older criminals fear the youngsters. Says a Chicago holdup man: “These younger criminals, they’re sick. They have no motive for what they’re doing.” And a New Yorker who has been mugged six times in four years warned: “Watch out for the kids, they’re the dangerous ones.”

White-collar crime, such as employee theft, although not so visible, is hurting most of us even more in a financial way than is traditional crime. Norman Jaspan, a noted business-crime expert, says it “adds as much as 15 per cent to the cost of goods and services.” But there is also the cost to us of organized crime, New York special prosecutor Maurice Nadjari claiming: “23 cents of every dollar that we spend goes into the pockets of organized crime.”

Yes, crime not only threatens our safety, but is ‘robbing us blind.’ Yet, Boston Police Commissioner Robert J. DiGrazia recently confessed: “We cannot eliminate or reduce crime. That’s something that’s beyond our capabilities.”