In last month’s column I reminisced about the “good old days.” As I sat down to write this column, I heard that Oakland has just recorded its 100th homicide of the year. This is a rate of about one every three days. That started me wondering if I could find any statistical proof the old days really were better – at least from the point of view of crime rates. That led me to a study of historic crime rates published by the California attorney general in September 2011. The study covers the years from 1966 through 2010, and so probably goes back far enough to qualify as the good old days.

When looking at crime rates, it is first necessary to take into account the change in population of California since 1966. At that time, California had just over 19 million people. In 2010, the population reached almost 39 million. The attorney general’s study calculates crime rates per 100,000 people, so it normalizes the totals for population growth. The study categorizes crimes into “violent crimes” (homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault), “property crimes” (burglary, auto theft and larceny theft over $400), and “arson.” At first I thought my rose-colored glasses were working quite well. Violent crime per 100,000 people was at 298 in 1966 and 422 in 2010. But closer examination showed the increase in violent crime was not a linear story. It increased each year from 1966 through 1992, when it reached a peak of 1,104, but has been declining ever since.

Property crimes show a slightly more complicated pattern – rising from 1,680 per 100,000 in 1966 to a peak of 3,332 in 1989, and then declining to 1,677 in 2000 until they rose again to 1,952 in 2005. Property crimes have since steadily declined to 1,507 in 2010. So property crime rates are now lower than 1966. Arson has shown a steady decline from 120 in 1980 to 20 per 100,000 in 2010. The next question that comes to mind is how the police have responded to these changing rates.

The total arrests per 100,000 have declined by about 4 percent since 1966, but it would appear that the quality of the arrests is improving. In 1975, less than half the people arrested were eventually convicted. By 2010, 68 percent of the people arrested were convicted.

Another change, which probably reflects the mood of our court system, is we are now placing people on probation at about twice the rate of 1966. In 2010, there were over 300,000 adults on probation and 80 percent of those had been convicted of felonies.

And so the rearward view through the rose-colored glasses is a little clouded. Violent crime rates were lower in 1966 than today, but the 1980–1995 period was much worse than today. Property crimes were a little higher in 1966 than today, but were much higher in the 1980s and 1990s.

If you are old enough to think of 1966 as the good old days, you are probably right – or perhaps people were so busy loving each other in the Summer of Love or so mellow as a result of controlled substances they had no time left for committing crimes.