“While the definitions of some crimes may have changed over time, or be either way crimes, murder is murder so that’s the gold standard to look at. Changes in the murder rate will therefore be the best guide to whether crime is increasing or not. This isn’t, I sorry to have to say, entirely true. Yes, we can indeed measure murder rather better than we can all other crimes. But we’re still missing something. That is that medical treatment of trauma victims has got a great deal better over the decades: people attacked who would have died in earlier times (ie, would have been murdered) now survive (and are thus not murdered). So by counting only the number of people successfully murdered we’re confusing two entirely different things.” (03/14/10)