Steven Pinker

Factual · Philosophy, ethics and society

“I never expected to learn that homicide in the US, war in Africa, rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, spanking, hate crimes--you name it--have all been in decline since records were first kept.”

Steven Pinker, author, interview answer · 6 October 2011 · Q&A with Steven Pinker, Better Angels (CBS News) (CBS News)

Homicide in the US, war in Africa, rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, spanking and hate crimes have all declined since records were first kept.

Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

The claim has seven parts: US homicide, war in Africa, rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, spanking and hate crimes. Each must have declined overall from the start of systematic records to about 2011, judged on long-run trend, not year to year. True: the available data series (e.g. FBI UCR/NCVS, CDC, UCDP/PRIO for African conflict, NIS/NCANDS for child abuse, surveys of attitudes to and use of spanking, FBI hate crime statistics) show a net decline for all seven up to about 2011. Mostly true: all show net long-run declines, but one has a minor caveat (e.g. a series that began only recently, or a temporary rise). Mixed: roughly half of the categories show a net decline since records began and the rest do not. Mostly false: most categories do not show a decline since records began, or declines appear only over selected recent windows while the full record does not show them. False: the data show that most or all of the categories rose or stayed flat since records began.

Evidence

1. A Review of National Crime Victim Victimization Findings on Rape and Sexual Assault Council on Contemporary Families · 20 April 2015

   “Both tables demonstrate downward movement in the rate of rapes since the survey began in 1973.”

2. Have Sexual Abuse and Physical Abuse Declined Since the 1990s? Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire (Finkelhor & Jones) · November 2012

   “However, hospital data on young children admitted for inflicted injuries do not show a decline.”

3. Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2010 | Office of Justice Programs U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (BJS NCVS summary) · 1 November 2012

   “From 1994 to 2010, the overall rate of intimate partner violence in the United States declined by 64%, from 9.8 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older to 3.6 per 1,000.”

4. Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008: Annual Rates for 2009 and 2010 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics · November 2011

   “In the last decade (since 2000) the homicide rate declined to levels last seen in the mid-1960s”

5. Have Sexual Abuse and Physical Abuse Declined Since the 1990s? Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire (Finkelhor & Jones) · November 2012

   “That data show a 62% decline in rates of substantiated sexual abuse starting in 1992 and continuing through 2010, with the largest drop occurring in the late 1990s (Figure 1).”

6. Have Sexual Abuse and Physical Abuse Declined Since the 1990s? Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire (Finkelhor & Jones) · November 2012

   “However, a variety of other data sources do not show trends consistent with the NIS.”

7. Have Sexual Abuse and Physical Abuse Declined Since the 1990s? Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire (Finkelhor & Jones) · November 2012

   “The FBI rape data show a sharp decline that, like the NCANDS data, started in 1992 and continued through 2010. The total drop was 35%”

8. Psychology Professor's Findings on Corporal Punishment Decline Published in Pediatrics - College of Arts & Sciences Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences

   “finds that American parents employed spanking or other forms of corporal punishment for children at a rapidly declining rate over the 1988-2011 period.”

9. [PDF] Statistical Overviews - Office for Victims of Crime US Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (2013 NCVRW Resource Guide) · 2013

   “In general (and despite occasional variations), crime in the United States has declined measurably for decades.”

10. Chapter 12: State-building and Conflict Prevention in Africa JICA Research Institute (Ryutaro Murotani)

    “However, in the 2000s, according to the UCDP/PRIO datasets, the African continent witnessed a decrease in the number of armed conflicts and battle-related deaths compared to the 1990s.”

11. Hate Crime Recorded by Law Enforcement, 2010–2019 US Bureau of Justice Statistics (Erica Smith) · September 2021

    “From 2010 to 2019, the number of hate crime incidents recorded by law enforcement rose from 6,628 to 7,314, a 10% increase (figure 1).”

Reasoning

I rated this claim mixed: the evidence backs some of the seven declines but contests or leaves out others. For rape, NCVS data show a decline across the whole survey since 1973 (E2). Intimate partner violence fell 64% from 1994 to 2010 (E4), spanking fell over 1988–2011 (E9), and African armed conflict fell in the 2000s compared with the 1990s (E11), but each of these covers only part of the record. US homicide fell only to levels last seen in the mid-1960s (E5), which does not show a decline since records began. Physical child abuse is contested: hospital data and other sources do not match the agency data that show a fall (E3, E7), though sexual abuse fell from 1992 (E6). No evidence covers hate crimes before 2011 (E12 covers only 2010–2019).

Cite this claim

Steven Pinker, “Homicide in the US, war in Africa, rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, spanking and hate crimes have all declined since records were first kept.” (said 6 October 2011). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_90e393f52bb4, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_90e393f52bb4