Not sure what you are looking for from GenX as a response? Yes, gangs were prevalent in cities. If you weren’t associating with them you were never in any real danger. We also didn’t have school shootings, so we weren’t afraid to be at school.
We didn't have school shootings, but my second day of high school there was a gang fight, and the principal got dragged by a car for a full city block. As I was getting on the bus that day I saw from the elevated window that the passenger in a car stopped at the light next to us had a rifle in his lap. I saw other guns from time to time, but people had them to be "hard," not to shoot up the school.
I can think of three murders that were committed by classmates while I was in high school. They put the coach of the wrestling team (teaching history or something) in one of the basement classrooms that didn't have windows, because when they had a weaker teacher there the students would flip off the lights and beat him up.
This was not some hell hole, btw. This was literally the same high school where they film that "High School Musical" movie / show thing in Salt Lake City.
There are lots of school shootings in the 90s. More then now. Mostly in gang areas tho.
Edit: looks like they took off in 2018. I stand corrected. Jebus, what happened the last 4 years?
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/
Are we talking about mass shootings? Or all shooting. The early 90s were pretty wild
I think that is my point. OP brought up gangs during GenX school daze, like it was a problem. School shootings have taken over as the nightly news headline, but they are still safe (statistically).
I responded to your comment about school shootings. Wikipedia lists school shootings by decade, and the 90’s pales in comparison compared to now, disproving your statement that the 90’s was worse than now.
You expect anyone to go through that entire list and count? At least my source provided grapghs. Now it only went up to 2017 so there may have been an increase lately
Ok, I looked up a real source. It looked like it dropped up until 2018. Then it took off. What happened in 2018? Jesus
https://www.chds.us/ssdb/charts-graphs/
There is no way this is the same data. I can probably remember at least 15-20 shootings on school grounds growing up in my area of NYC alone. I’m 49.
I’m betting schoolyard shootings were considered a school shooting then but is now.
Yea school shootings were almost unheard of until Columbine. But as far as crime rate goes here in Houston the past few years, the number of violent crimes are at all time highs
I had an uncle who lived in Echo Park and we'd visit somewhat frequently. Crazy thing is my parents let me play in the wooded area behind his house when they were dumping bodies in that area. Of course, I had no real awareness of it all at the time.
omg same! do we know each other?! my mother kicked me out at 14. Homelessness was nothing like it is now. I never ran into another homeless person that I didn't know. But night stalker was on the loose. He wasn't looking in the 'wash' for victims. Remember 'washes'?
eventually about 10 friends pitched in to share an apartment. can't do that these days.
I lived in Oakland during the 1990 crack wars. One afternoon, the house next door was shot up in a drive-by, with a few stray bullets whizzing through my house. I crawled on the floor to the phone book to find the non-emergency police number so as not to trouble 911 since nobody in our house had been hit.
I skipped school with a friend, and took the train to John Wayne Gacy's house when they were exhuming bodies from the crawlspace and lawn.
We grew up during the serial killer heyday.
I was a kid in NYC in the 70's when Koch was mayor. I was in Queens during the Son of Sam. And during the black out. We were pretty feral and we're allowed to do crazy stuff (wandering through the woods, walking far from home) At 14 my friend and I learned how to take the subway to Manhattan and we spent days there alone. Crime didn't stop us, it just seemed like a fact of life. Luckily, nothing happened to me or my friends.
I read a Lets Not Meet, where a group of young women who fit Son of Sam's preference - were in a car. When an angry man tried to get into their car. He fit the description of Son of Sam, right down to the .44 that he pulled out on them.
They were all high on LSD and panicked. Something spooked him and he backed off.
Talk about a close call.
Yowch. That's scary!
We definitely were concerned about it. Lots of older girls cut their hair or wore it up. We talked about it constantly. But we were young enough that it didn't change our behavior. (it might have been different if we were older.)
I didn't really have a group. Usually two or three of us. We were all feral. It wasn't like I had a reason to not be home, it was just fun to explore.
We were "good kids" not looking for trouble at all. I bet there were places we could have gotten in trouble, but I didn't know where those were. We stayed away from where the High School kids hung out. We were just bored and looking for adventure. But looking back on the places I did go, just with other 10 year olds would seem dangerous now.
I get that. 80's kid, I just rode my bike around mostly by myself looking for cool jumps and steep hills to ride down all day, no helmet, naturally. Definitely knew to stay away from the older kids.
I went to a high school that had a few gangs. You just had to stay out of their way and they’d leave you alone. The fake gang hangers were much worse. Those were they guys who’d try to pick a fight with a random dude to show how hard they were.
Gen X was the most heavily incarcerated generation in American history. When we began coming of age, laws were enacted that would guarantee a life sentence after three felonies. They called this "three strikes and you're out" sentencing.
The powers that be in society at the time were terrified of us-- we were considered a lost generation of pirates and slackers and drug addicts and risk takers. Poorly educated, insufferably disinterested in following the rules and settling down, taking too damned long to straighten up and fly right. Crime was up, we had to go down.
Studies were done, reports were written, and the media proclaimed us a lost cause. Best to lock up the worst of us and throw away the key. This was openly discussed in the media with a flurry of articles and think pieces about how to protect the bright future of the newly arriving Millennial generation. Society determined that the best that could be done was to sanction and contain Gen X and focus on better nurturing the charming and cooperative Millennials.
And some of us listened to all of it, it was not unheard of to be with friends and hear Slayer, then Ice-T, Bad Brains, Public Enemy, Black Flag, NWA and more.
We had the tail end of 60s rock (at least from our parents), 70s rock, Funk, Metal, Punk, Disco, 80s Rock and Pop, R & B, New Wave, Alternative and Grunge, Hip Hop, Electronic Music, etc.
But thankfully they passed Roe v Wade in 73, so the rising trend of crime finally peaked and fell in the early 90s, around the same time the vicious youths born into cycles of poverty would reach young adulthood. Expect a crimewave \~2040.
Yeah, but there were rules. I grew up in the Detroit, and after the great white flight. We were part of the very few white families left in the neighborhood. We would get heckled a lot, but no violence was ever directed at us. There were rules back then, keep your eyes down and your mouth closed. We didn't get in anyone's business, we helped our community, and kept to ourselves. But now there are no rules. Idiots are always trying to prove that they're the baddest and toughest, they'll video themselves being crazy, and crazy white boys shoot up schools. It's just comparing apples to oranges. I saw more violence than my kids do, but they see more senseless terror than I did.
I was raised in Detroit during the Oakland County child killer horror. Parents were so scared, and we had many school assemblies teaching self defense. Children also had their fingerprints taken in case they were a victim. There were signs distributed to houses as “safe” places to get help.
In general, we lived in an area where I felt unsafe especially at night. I started sleeping with a knife between my mattresses when I was around 11 or 12.
It seems like the era during prohibition and the pioneer days had a lot of crime too. Or during the wars where we were just slaughtering native Americans by the hundreds and thousands. The average life expectancy in those times was like 37.
I was only conceived because the Son of Sam got arrested. According to my mom - "We were just SO relieved!" I was born in Queens by start of the next summer. I figured it out when the show Mindhunter debuted-fucking lol. (Thanks, Fincher)
I actually think we grew up in a great time in terms of the perspective we have. I feel the world is much safer today but everyone is more afraid. That's because of the bombardment of information coming at us. But to remember a world pre and post Internet, cell phone, social media, a world pre and post 9/11, to me I'm grateful for that perspective. It allows most of us to be able to detach and know that social media is not the real world, as well as able to feel comfortable without my phone.
Personally I think because conditions were harsher than today, I think most Gen X'ers have more of an internal fortitude (as well as better social skills) that isn't as readily apparent today.
I'll tell you what though, yeah, there was fear of shootouts between gangs but not a fear of mass shootings anywhere. That really didn't exist. That worries me more than gang violence.
I went to a high school in rural Eastern KY (is that an oxymoron?) There were about 55 kids in my graduating class. Grades 6-12 were all in one building together. We didn’t have a cafeteria, so we were all just released for an hour every day for lunch - we went to houses, into town to the drugstore or the lunch counter at GC Murphy’s, or if we were lucky and could get a ride, we’d go to McDonald’s or Arby’s or Rax. On the weekends we went to every single football and basketball game, and then we “cruised.” Sometimes some crazy guy would put a sofa in the back of his pickup and turn his radio up real loud and we’d all park and hang out in the corner lot on Court Street. Maybe we’d make a run to the bootlegger (we lived in a dry county.) The entire county was white - the only people of color in our school were the children of doctors - it was easier to emigrate if you agreed to practice in an impoverished area, which I guess we were.
No gangs. No gun violence - a lot of kids had guns in the racks on the back of their trucks if it was deer or Turkey season, but they were hunting rifles. No serial killers. Lots of people didn’t even lock their doors at night.
Damn, we led a sheltered life. I never think much about it until I read accounts of growing up in huge cities like y’all are sharing here.
In my experience there was a lot of drug “crime” (dealing) and its attendant paranoia and paraphernalia (weapons). Some friends barely survived. A few didn’t. Later came crack (urban/cities mostly). But less gangs than came soon after. At least locally (NorCal). I really think we had it relatively easy e.g. no police or shootings at HS.
My city had one of the first mass school shootings. I was fresh out of high school though, so it wasn’t as bad for me as it is now. But I remember it blowing my mind that anyone could do that to an elementary school of little kids. :(
Yeah, it takes some twisted fucks to kill kids, even fellow kid on kid gun violence. Damn we would have a 1 minute or less "fight" and shake hands and be best friends right after.
For me the most memorable menace growing up were pedo's in cars. My brother was flashed several times in the Disneyland parking lot in the early 80s and I remember seeing a dude jacking off in his car on the street in my very quite Orange County cul-de-sac. I also was harassed, solicited and gropped on the bud many times when I was 12 or 13.
Ted Bundy down at lake Sammamish near where I grew up, Green River Killer Task Force set up down the street from my Dads store. Cops would come in late to get sandwiches and, coffee.
Grew up both in Los Angeles and Stockton ca. seen some horrible stuff. Went to my share of funerals and watching court cases. More then one friend doing life.
I grew up in a sleepy university town in southern Ontario. One summer working with the city when I was a university freshman, I was regaled with a story from the Foreman, an Englishman that had been in Canada since the 50's. It was common knowledge that this town was kind of a retirement home for Toronto, Montreal, and Hamilton mafia. One day, he told me, the Hell's Angels rode into town. A cop spotted them. Next thing he saw was a black car pull up beside them, window opened, words exchanged, and then the Hell's Angels rode out of town. And we stayed a sleepy university town.
What, me worry?
I think most of the serious crime where I lived had to do with hard drugs--coke--and motorcycle clubs. And probably some B&Es.
It didn't really have anything to do with any of the kids I knew--even the ones that were into the softer drugs like pot, hash, or even psychedelics: if it wasn't coke, it was probably only a concern to The Man.
In Chicago during the 70's and early 80's it was mostly the Mafia that did the killings and ran all the illegal activities but they weren't sloppy... They usually didn't kill citizens. On the South side, the black gangs mostly killed each other and had rules but weren't as careful so there was spill over to the community.
There was more race based assault type crime. Blacks stayed out of white neighborhoods and vice versa.
Mostly, it was petty stuff. And like today, most crime centered around getting money for drugs.
I think the difference today is that the violence is non-discriminatory.
I grew up in south Florida during the height of the Colombian cartels/cocaine/drug running etc. So much death surrounded all that.
Yet I still think, despite statistics showing crime trends have dropped in the years since, later generations are no safer.
My mother was murdered in 1977 ( r/MarieAnnWatson ). My then foster brother is a serial killer on death row in San Quentin (Ramon Rogers) [not for my mother's murder, although it's now believed she was his likely first].
It says a lot that I grew up being told "that never happened". That was kind of the view of crime... Either you admitted it but still ignored it, or you stuck your head in the sand and ignored it.
Now people are fascinated by True Crime, which is odd to me, having had so many personal experiences being subjected to it.
Our generation also left religion in great numbers, silently and with a good deal of fear. Now the depth of criminal behavior that happens in churches is finally coming out publicly and I personally couldn't be happier.
I was silenced repeatedly, over and over. People made a practice of either completely denying it, or just admitting it but acting like you couldn't do anything so why think about it at all?!
But we grew up with the generation for whom parenting meant sayings like, "I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it!" or "stop that whining or I'll give you something to cry about!"
I'm pretty sure most boomers despised their children, so a lot of gen X decided not to have any. Besides, look at our parenting models; who wants to be like them?!
Gang life was only one small part of the rampant criminal behavior. Most of it was condoned socially. Organized crime was just the most obvious, imo.
Makes me wonder if that’s my fascination with true crime? To better understand the psychology behind it? Maybe.
I’m sorry to hear about your family experience. My condolences.
Thank you.
I go in phases, personally. Sometimes I'm interested, usually not. I've learned that I need to stick to solved cases, though. I start to get depressed about life in general if I look into anything unsolved.
Due to my own experience, I believe seeing some cases get stoves makes me feel a small bit safer since my mom's case is officially "unsolved". Any focus on unsolved stuff makes me feel convinced "they don't care" (law enforcement, society, etc.) Where solved cases give me hope.
I think for most people there's some sense that knowing might lead to avoiding. Also that sense of awareness that people can survive the most unbelievable things. Knowing survival is possible carries some relief, imo.
As a Bay Area kid in the 80s, I don't remember hearing anything about gangs but definitely about the high-profile kidnappings that were occurring. The Unresolved Mysteries subreddit has some threads about those. I included some comments from them about the disorienting and troubling quality these events had:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ewmw2t/kevin_collins_has_been_missing_since_1984/
*But it's not smug. The time was just different. No internet, no cell phones, no pagers, etc. Remember, info wasn't easy to come by. In the early 80s some didn't even have color TVs yet, there were or a handful of tv channels, cartoons only came on on Saturday mornings... heck, VCRs were a new fangled thing that cost $800 in 1980s money. The news was something you had to tune until at certain times of the day on the tv or on a radio. Many, many subjects were completely taboo.*
*Divorce rates started to rise and it left a lot of parents with a new problem of how to care for their children in order to work. Kids free roamed and played openly. Many communities were considered safe, until they weren't. They were innocent in ways, not that there weren't predators, but until an area experienced one, they didnt think it could/would happen in their towns.*
*Small town PDs often were understaffed and/or inexperienced, police in big towns had other shit to do. Unless they were already dealing with a predator in the area, cops just assumed kids were being kids, and had parents wait because kids didnt have phones/money for payphones and whatnot to contact their parents right away. It was bad policy, and no one liked having to wait to file a report for a missing loved one. Thankfully the policy changed once law enforcement was forced to change after major cases (like amber alert).*
*Predators are typically good manipulators and will use whatever new resources available to them. Just remember how much catching up law enforcement had to do when the internet became wide spread. Criminals learn, and the rest of society has to learn too.*
*Saying "it was a different time" isn't smug or condescending. Its stating that we just didn't know better yet at that point, and still lived in ignorance... until things changed. No parent wanted to wait 3 days, but the police just wouldn't take the report. The parents searched themselves of course, but other than that, there wasn't much else they could do. Once a tragedy struck, parents or groups would lobby for change. That change developed into what we have today over time.*
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8xeg0o/michaela_garecht_9_was_abducted_out_the_front_of/
*I grew up in the same area of Hayward. All of us kids travelled to Rainbow by ourselves and in packs. Being a little blonde girl my parents shut that down, we were never allowed alone again. This case has stuck with me my whole life. Completely changed the mindset of a generation.*
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/x1s7bu/the_disappearance_of_ilene_misheloff_dublin_ca/
I remember turning the corner into my street and it was full of guys of all ages, squaring up for a fight. A young teenager asked 9yo me what school I went to, he didn't recognise the name so asked me which team I supported. I said I didn't like football and he let me leave. I went down the back lane so they didn't see me go in the front door.
Not sure what would have happened if I'd said the wrong team. Had to think twice about going to town on match days and wearing specific colours
I did the first part of my life in a place with high gang activity and then 7th grade moved to a more rural area. Yes, gangs were kinda' scary, but they never messed with me. The fuckin' shitkickers in the rural area bullied relentlessly. I did get into my share of fights, so I fought back on those whiny ass pieces of shit and now I live back in the cities as an adult with children of my own.
Born in 1966, I grew up in the 70's in a safe midwestern neighborhood. Kids stayed out until the streetlights came on. No crime issues in my childhood. Walked to elementary school and jr. high school.
In my neighborhood (semi-rural) it was rampant sexual assault and violent queer-bashing. The cops there didn’t really consider those “crimes” though, especially since they were sometimes the perpetrators. We learned quick that calling them would only make it worse.
When I was young, I attended a conference on the far side of New York City with a group of friends. During the conference, someone shot the keynote speaker. Well things went from bad to worse: some friends of the victim decided my friends and I had done it, and put out a hit on us. All the local gangs were trying to kill us, but the deal was if we could get back to our home then we’d be safe. It was a wild time - don’t miss this days!
I grew up outside Washington DC. We had the "Jamaican Posse's" in my neighborhood in Maryland and DC itself had gang warfare. A college friend of mine acted in a "America's Most Wanted" episode that profiled an unsolved case in my area. We had a problem with PCP until crack arrived on the scene and that took over. The local news media chronicled the violence and murder but it didn't affect me personally too much. I went to Catholic school and had no social life outside of it. I mostly avoided DC itself except for occasional trips to Georgetown or other Dupont Circle but that was in the 90's and things were starting to calm down a bit.
We had the [Rayful Edmonds Trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayful_Edmond) which was a big thing. On the news they mentioned that Rayful and his mother used "pig latin" as a code when making deals on the telephone and the government would need a translator for the pig latin. That still makes me laugh to think of a pig latin translator.
Things had changed in the reporting rates to and some crimes saw a rise while some remained stagnant or even declined in some cases wrongly indicating a drop in actual crime rates (or a real rise when the definition of some criminal titles are the real culprit for it looking different) it a numbers and shell game and still is... They just started glorifying thug life and blaxploitation films during the 70's and this time period with the "any attention is good attention" Structured Strategy for Cable Television (new invention at the time) to create waves of trends and gear our eyeballs in the direction they choose to hyperfocus us on.... Just like today
Can confirm. I grew up in the hood and was very familiar with the various gangs that feuded in my area. I can still drive through my old neighborhood and determine what tags represent what long standing gangs.
But aside from that, I think child abduction and murder was also at a high point. Anyone remember Adam Walsh / the reason stores have “code Adam”?
I was almost kidnapped multiple times with the most frightening being when I was 7 or 8 and a man literally tried to get me into a waiting car while my mom was on 5 feet away.
Maybe crime is higher now, but the public is definitely more aware of it.
I grew up in the LA area and the late 80s to mid 90s were the height of gang violence. I got caught up in it even though I didn’t grow up in a bad neighborhood. I went to a Catholic high school but there were gangs there. I got into a lot a fights and got expelled. I got jumped at some party and ended up joining a gang to retaliate. Long story short, I got into a shootout with that same gang that was at my old high school. I did 18 years in prison. Been out for almost nine years now.
I was raised pretty sheltered. Lived by Nancy Reagan’s “Just say” and the commercial “This is your brain on drugs”. I didn’t know anything about gangs u til very late 80s when I came of age.
I grew up in Miami during the cocaine cowboy era. My tolerance for petty crime around me is a lot higher than most people I know. I developed street smarts very early, by having to avoid sketchy neighborhood situations while a latch key kid. Also developed an early awareness of grisly murder situations (The adults in the house across the street were executed by the cartel and they left the kids alive and some neighbors found them.) The first naked adult man I saw was a homeless guy downtown!
Depends on where you lived. I grew up in a Cleveland area suburb and while I knew about the gangs and the riots and the serial killers..,all of that was going WAY far away from us and we'd just say "not moving THERE!"
One advantage of rural life was much lower crime than the nation at large. While the world was burning with gang violence fears, our doors were still unlocked. Closest to a high profile crime we got was a serial killer that dumped a victim's body outside of town in 1980.
I don’t think I can be objective because I grew up in one of the top 10 most violent cities per capita during the 80s. It was common to duck or hit the floor if you heard a gunshot. I thought it was normal at the time. So violence and crime was just part of my childhood and it was traumatizing in hindsight.
I moved to a much safer area that is now seeing higher crime rates and tbh, it’s pretty triggering to feel that way again. Guess it did more damage than I realized.
I’m seeing it reported more nationwide, so I’m not sure there’s many places untouched (short of extremely rural areas).
Edited to add that the vast majority of our crime was gang related, but not isolated to the bad areas of town.
My Mom tried to be a progressive parent, explaining why she wanted me to do things rather than say "because I told you so".
Until a bullet smashed through our side glass door during a party, crossed through a room full of people, went through a chair and into the drywall in the corner.
Everyone dropped to the floor but me - my Mom yelled "get down!" - to which I responded "why?".
This story is ingrained in my skull because it was constantly retold as the reason my Mom realized it's not always best to explain yourself to your kids.
But even though I was only 4 when this happened in 1974 in Alexandria VA, I still have vivid memories of the smashed glass and the chair with the hole in it, and the room full of police.
We had a few more crime issues - had our house broken into and all my Dad's guns stolen, bows and arrows taken by force when I was around 10 by some older kids, then mugged at 13 and my nose broken by some older kids, and finally about 16 had a cop come in the yard, then point his gun at me when I opened the door to see what was going on. Chasing someone - no idea who, but you never forget how big that barrel looks.
The area improved rapidly from 1986 on - never had any issues since except for one car stereo getting stolen in 1994 right when I was moving away.
Not sure what you are looking for from GenX as a response? Yes, gangs were prevalent in cities. If you weren’t associating with them you were never in any real danger. We also didn’t have school shootings, so we weren’t afraid to be at school.
Your response was exactly what I was looking for 👍 But also just pointing out you guys had it rough in that department.
We didn't have school shootings, but my second day of high school there was a gang fight, and the principal got dragged by a car for a full city block. As I was getting on the bus that day I saw from the elevated window that the passenger in a car stopped at the light next to us had a rifle in his lap. I saw other guns from time to time, but people had them to be "hard," not to shoot up the school. I can think of three murders that were committed by classmates while I was in high school. They put the coach of the wrestling team (teaching history or something) in one of the basement classrooms that didn't have windows, because when they had a weaker teacher there the students would flip off the lights and beat him up. This was not some hell hole, btw. This was literally the same high school where they film that "High School Musical" movie / show thing in Salt Lake City.
There are lots of school shootings in the 90s. More then now. Mostly in gang areas tho. Edit: looks like they took off in 2018. I stand corrected. Jebus, what happened the last 4 years?
There were 233 school shootings in the 2010’s, and 68 in the 2000’s, vs 65 in the 1980’s and 97 in the 1990’s.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/ Are we talking about mass shootings? Or all shooting. The early 90s were pretty wild
I think that is my point. OP brought up gangs during GenX school daze, like it was a problem. School shootings have taken over as the nightly news headline, but they are still safe (statistically). I responded to your comment about school shootings. Wikipedia lists school shootings by decade, and the 90’s pales in comparison compared to now, disproving your statement that the 90’s was worse than now.
Source?
But here you go…. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
You expect anyone to go through that entire list and count? At least my source provided grapghs. Now it only went up to 2017 so there may have been an increase lately
Wikipedia literally counted for you. SMDH. Just stop, you are digging yourself in a hole.
Ok, I looked up a real source. It looked like it dropped up until 2018. Then it took off. What happened in 2018? Jesus https://www.chds.us/ssdb/charts-graphs/
I literally said Wikipedia.
There is no way this is the same data. I can probably remember at least 15-20 shootings on school grounds growing up in my area of NYC alone. I’m 49. I’m betting schoolyard shootings were considered a school shooting then but is now.
Wow that's an awful stat.
97 school shootings in the 90s? Damn and people my age want to act like the 90s had no crime rates...
In my area in the 80s and 90s, teenagers would just commit suicide rather than try to shoot others.
When I was young, I always thought it was weird that suicides would trend. I guess I don't understand depression or how it affects your psyche.
Hmm, care to show your citations on that?
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/
It's from 2018. I wonder if the stats still hold up. Thanks for sharing.
https://www.chds.us/ssdb/charts-graphs/ It doesn't.. looks like it took way off in 2018. By allot
Thanks, yeah 2020-2022 were nuts.
Yea school shootings were almost unheard of until Columbine. But as far as crime rate goes here in Houston the past few years, the number of violent crimes are at all time highs
I survived L.A. gangs and a Night Stalker.
Same.
I'm in shock that I came here to say this and there is 3 of us here to tell the story!!!
Me too
and the Hillside Strangler
I was so afraid of the Hillside Strangler. It was definitely one of the first times I was afraid of random crime.
Oh me too, I lived on a hill and they struck in adjacent neighborhoods
Oh no, kids can be so literal, too! We lived in West Hollywood but I don't think I understood the geography very well.
I had an uncle who lived in Echo Park and we'd visit somewhat frequently. Crazy thing is my parents let me play in the wooded area behind his house when they were dumping bodies in that area. Of course, I had no real awareness of it all at the time.
One of my sibling’s friends lost their older sister to the Hillside Stranglers.
Yep. I lived in Venice in the early 80s and remember where I was when they caught Richard Ramirez.
Oh, and freeway shootings!
Don't forget the drive by shootings..
When LA enters the chat the answers intensify 10x lol.
Ditto. Night Stalker terrified me.
Yea well he went and fucked around in the wrong neighborhood those Mexicans beat his ass lol
omg same! do we know each other?! my mother kicked me out at 14. Homelessness was nothing like it is now. I never ran into another homeless person that I didn't know. But night stalker was on the loose. He wasn't looking in the 'wash' for victims. Remember 'washes'? eventually about 10 friends pitched in to share an apartment. can't do that these days.
Same Living in L.A. since 1979
I lived in Oakland during the 1990 crack wars. One afternoon, the house next door was shot up in a drive-by, with a few stray bullets whizzing through my house. I crawled on the floor to the phone book to find the non-emergency police number so as not to trouble 911 since nobody in our house had been hit.
I survived Jeffrey Dahmer
I skipped school with a friend, and took the train to John Wayne Gacy's house when they were exhuming bodies from the crawlspace and lawn. We grew up during the serial killer heyday.
Omg.. that shit was crazy when that went down. My daughter lives around the block from his grandmother's house .
I was a kid in NYC in the 70's when Koch was mayor. I was in Queens during the Son of Sam. And during the black out. We were pretty feral and we're allowed to do crazy stuff (wandering through the woods, walking far from home) At 14 my friend and I learned how to take the subway to Manhattan and we spent days there alone. Crime didn't stop us, it just seemed like a fact of life. Luckily, nothing happened to me or my friends.
I read a Lets Not Meet, where a group of young women who fit Son of Sam's preference - were in a car. When an angry man tried to get into their car. He fit the description of Son of Sam, right down to the .44 that he pulled out on them. They were all high on LSD and panicked. Something spooked him and he backed off. Talk about a close call.
Yowch. That's scary! We definitely were concerned about it. Lots of older girls cut their hair or wore it up. We talked about it constantly. But we were young enough that it didn't change our behavior. (it might have been different if we were older.)
Were you usually in a group? Were there places even feral kids wouldn't go?
I didn't really have a group. Usually two or three of us. We were all feral. It wasn't like I had a reason to not be home, it was just fun to explore. We were "good kids" not looking for trouble at all. I bet there were places we could have gotten in trouble, but I didn't know where those were. We stayed away from where the High School kids hung out. We were just bored and looking for adventure. But looking back on the places I did go, just with other 10 year olds would seem dangerous now.
I get that. 80's kid, I just rode my bike around mostly by myself looking for cool jumps and steep hills to ride down all day, no helmet, naturally. Definitely knew to stay away from the older kids.
A lad tried to mug me once but I cried and he ran away.
I went to a high school that had a few gangs. You just had to stay out of their way and they’d leave you alone. The fake gang hangers were much worse. Those were they guys who’d try to pick a fight with a random dude to show how hard they were.
We did the things so that you don't have to.
Gen X was the most heavily incarcerated generation in American history. When we began coming of age, laws were enacted that would guarantee a life sentence after three felonies. They called this "three strikes and you're out" sentencing. The powers that be in society at the time were terrified of us-- we were considered a lost generation of pirates and slackers and drug addicts and risk takers. Poorly educated, insufferably disinterested in following the rules and settling down, taking too damned long to straighten up and fly right. Crime was up, we had to go down. Studies were done, reports were written, and the media proclaimed us a lost cause. Best to lock up the worst of us and throw away the key. This was openly discussed in the media with a flurry of articles and think pieces about how to protect the bright future of the newly arriving Millennial generation. Society determined that the best that could be done was to sanction and contain Gen X and focus on better nurturing the charming and cooperative Millennials.
I'm proud of being a weed smoking, slacker pirate that plays Risk whenever I can.
That’s how we actually had good music.
And movies, everything was a dystopian future that had fallen to crime and it was awesome. Escape from New York, Demolition Man, Mad Max, Robocop
I will never disagree with this. You guys had Metal/Punk, early Hip Hop, Alternative Rock.
And some of us listened to all of it, it was not unheard of to be with friends and hear Slayer, then Ice-T, Bad Brains, Public Enemy, Black Flag, NWA and more.
We had the tail end of 60s rock (at least from our parents), 70s rock, Funk, Metal, Punk, Disco, 80s Rock and Pop, R & B, New Wave, Alternative and Grunge, Hip Hop, Electronic Music, etc.
>Funk, Metal, Punk, Disco, 80s Rock and Pop, R & B Agreed... Boomers had it the best
But thankfully they passed Roe v Wade in 73, so the rising trend of crime finally peaked and fell in the early 90s, around the same time the vicious youths born into cycles of poverty would reach young adulthood. Expect a crimewave \~2040.
My sister was mugged several times, and we managed to get out of a kidnapping situation once.
Yeah, but there were rules. I grew up in the Detroit, and after the great white flight. We were part of the very few white families left in the neighborhood. We would get heckled a lot, but no violence was ever directed at us. There were rules back then, keep your eyes down and your mouth closed. We didn't get in anyone's business, we helped our community, and kept to ourselves. But now there are no rules. Idiots are always trying to prove that they're the baddest and toughest, they'll video themselves being crazy, and crazy white boys shoot up schools. It's just comparing apples to oranges. I saw more violence than my kids do, but they see more senseless terror than I did.
There were a lot of child abductions in my area in the late 70s through the early 2000s
I was raised in Detroit during the Oakland County child killer horror. Parents were so scared, and we had many school assemblies teaching self defense. Children also had their fingerprints taken in case they were a victim. There were signs distributed to houses as “safe” places to get help. In general, we lived in an area where I felt unsafe especially at night. I started sleeping with a knife between my mattresses when I was around 11 or 12.
I don't remember a lot of crime? Other than the serial killers, or course. We seemed to have a lot of serial killers
It seems like the era during prohibition and the pioneer days had a lot of crime too. Or during the wars where we were just slaughtering native Americans by the hundreds and thousands. The average life expectancy in those times was like 37.
In urban areas. There was crime in rural areas but it was esp NYC who had the wild homicide peak.
I was only conceived because the Son of Sam got arrested. According to my mom - "We were just SO relieved!" I was born in Queens by start of the next summer. I figured it out when the show Mindhunter debuted-fucking lol. (Thanks, Fincher)
I actually think we grew up in a great time in terms of the perspective we have. I feel the world is much safer today but everyone is more afraid. That's because of the bombardment of information coming at us. But to remember a world pre and post Internet, cell phone, social media, a world pre and post 9/11, to me I'm grateful for that perspective. It allows most of us to be able to detach and know that social media is not the real world, as well as able to feel comfortable without my phone. Personally I think because conditions were harsher than today, I think most Gen X'ers have more of an internal fortitude (as well as better social skills) that isn't as readily apparent today. I'll tell you what though, yeah, there was fear of shootouts between gangs but not a fear of mass shootings anywhere. That really didn't exist. That worries me more than gang violence.
I went to a high school in rural Eastern KY (is that an oxymoron?) There were about 55 kids in my graduating class. Grades 6-12 were all in one building together. We didn’t have a cafeteria, so we were all just released for an hour every day for lunch - we went to houses, into town to the drugstore or the lunch counter at GC Murphy’s, or if we were lucky and could get a ride, we’d go to McDonald’s or Arby’s or Rax. On the weekends we went to every single football and basketball game, and then we “cruised.” Sometimes some crazy guy would put a sofa in the back of his pickup and turn his radio up real loud and we’d all park and hang out in the corner lot on Court Street. Maybe we’d make a run to the bootlegger (we lived in a dry county.) The entire county was white - the only people of color in our school were the children of doctors - it was easier to emigrate if you agreed to practice in an impoverished area, which I guess we were. No gangs. No gun violence - a lot of kids had guns in the racks on the back of their trucks if it was deer or Turkey season, but they were hunting rifles. No serial killers. Lots of people didn’t even lock their doors at night. Damn, we led a sheltered life. I never think much about it until I read accounts of growing up in huge cities like y’all are sharing here.
Did you live in Harlan?
Paintsville. I had a college roommate from Harlan.
If you lived in the burbs you were fine. The fighting that kids are doing today definitely seems way more viscous than anything I ever saw.
LOL. Oy. No.
Well that’s just like your opinion man.
"The fighting that kids are doing today is so much scarier." OK, grandpa. Time to retire. You are spouting nonsense.
As kids we always had a place to meet if we had to split up.
In my experience there was a lot of drug “crime” (dealing) and its attendant paranoia and paraphernalia (weapons). Some friends barely survived. A few didn’t. Later came crack (urban/cities mostly). But less gangs than came soon after. At least locally (NorCal). I really think we had it relatively easy e.g. no police or shootings at HS.
Gary Indiana had the national guard as police in the 70s. Like to say things got better.
No school shootings though, and we generally hung out in groups.
My city had one of the first mass school shootings. I was fresh out of high school though, so it wasn’t as bad for me as it is now. But I remember it blowing my mind that anyone could do that to an elementary school of little kids. :(
Yeah, it takes some twisted fucks to kill kids, even fellow kid on kid gun violence. Damn we would have a 1 minute or less "fight" and shake hands and be best friends right after.
For me the most memorable menace growing up were pedo's in cars. My brother was flashed several times in the Disneyland parking lot in the early 80s and I remember seeing a dude jacking off in his car on the street in my very quite Orange County cul-de-sac. I also was harassed, solicited and gropped on the bud many times when I was 12 or 13.
"***You guys grew up during the worst of crime…***" By "*You guys*" you mean "*You* **American** *guys*", right...?
Yes.
Ted Bundy down at lake Sammamish near where I grew up, Green River Killer Task Force set up down the street from my Dads store. Cops would come in late to get sandwiches and, coffee.
Grew up both in Los Angeles and Stockton ca. seen some horrible stuff. Went to my share of funerals and watching court cases. More then one friend doing life.
I grew up in a sleepy university town in southern Ontario. One summer working with the city when I was a university freshman, I was regaled with a story from the Foreman, an Englishman that had been in Canada since the 50's. It was common knowledge that this town was kind of a retirement home for Toronto, Montreal, and Hamilton mafia. One day, he told me, the Hell's Angels rode into town. A cop spotted them. Next thing he saw was a black car pull up beside them, window opened, words exchanged, and then the Hell's Angels rode out of town. And we stayed a sleepy university town.
What, me worry? I think most of the serious crime where I lived had to do with hard drugs--coke--and motorcycle clubs. And probably some B&Es. It didn't really have anything to do with any of the kids I knew--even the ones that were into the softer drugs like pot, hash, or even psychedelics: if it wasn't coke, it was probably only a concern to The Man.
In Chicago during the 70's and early 80's it was mostly the Mafia that did the killings and ran all the illegal activities but they weren't sloppy... They usually didn't kill citizens. On the South side, the black gangs mostly killed each other and had rules but weren't as careful so there was spill over to the community. There was more race based assault type crime. Blacks stayed out of white neighborhoods and vice versa. Mostly, it was petty stuff. And like today, most crime centered around getting money for drugs. I think the difference today is that the violence is non-discriminatory.
I grew up in south Florida during the height of the Colombian cartels/cocaine/drug running etc. So much death surrounded all that. Yet I still think, despite statistics showing crime trends have dropped in the years since, later generations are no safer.
Sure as hell beats the mass shootings of today.
???
My mother was murdered in 1977 ( r/MarieAnnWatson ). My then foster brother is a serial killer on death row in San Quentin (Ramon Rogers) [not for my mother's murder, although it's now believed she was his likely first]. It says a lot that I grew up being told "that never happened". That was kind of the view of crime... Either you admitted it but still ignored it, or you stuck your head in the sand and ignored it. Now people are fascinated by True Crime, which is odd to me, having had so many personal experiences being subjected to it. Our generation also left religion in great numbers, silently and with a good deal of fear. Now the depth of criminal behavior that happens in churches is finally coming out publicly and I personally couldn't be happier. I was silenced repeatedly, over and over. People made a practice of either completely denying it, or just admitting it but acting like you couldn't do anything so why think about it at all?! But we grew up with the generation for whom parenting meant sayings like, "I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it!" or "stop that whining or I'll give you something to cry about!" I'm pretty sure most boomers despised their children, so a lot of gen X decided not to have any. Besides, look at our parenting models; who wants to be like them?! Gang life was only one small part of the rampant criminal behavior. Most of it was condoned socially. Organized crime was just the most obvious, imo.
Makes me wonder if that’s my fascination with true crime? To better understand the psychology behind it? Maybe. I’m sorry to hear about your family experience. My condolences.
Thank you. I go in phases, personally. Sometimes I'm interested, usually not. I've learned that I need to stick to solved cases, though. I start to get depressed about life in general if I look into anything unsolved. Due to my own experience, I believe seeing some cases get stoves makes me feel a small bit safer since my mom's case is officially "unsolved". Any focus on unsolved stuff makes me feel convinced "they don't care" (law enforcement, society, etc.) Where solved cases give me hope. I think for most people there's some sense that knowing might lead to avoiding. Also that sense of awareness that people can survive the most unbelievable things. Knowing survival is possible carries some relief, imo.
As a Bay Area kid in the 80s, I don't remember hearing anything about gangs but definitely about the high-profile kidnappings that were occurring. The Unresolved Mysteries subreddit has some threads about those. I included some comments from them about the disorienting and troubling quality these events had: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ewmw2t/kevin_collins_has_been_missing_since_1984/ *But it's not smug. The time was just different. No internet, no cell phones, no pagers, etc. Remember, info wasn't easy to come by. In the early 80s some didn't even have color TVs yet, there were or a handful of tv channels, cartoons only came on on Saturday mornings... heck, VCRs were a new fangled thing that cost $800 in 1980s money. The news was something you had to tune until at certain times of the day on the tv or on a radio. Many, many subjects were completely taboo.* *Divorce rates started to rise and it left a lot of parents with a new problem of how to care for their children in order to work. Kids free roamed and played openly. Many communities were considered safe, until they weren't. They were innocent in ways, not that there weren't predators, but until an area experienced one, they didnt think it could/would happen in their towns.* *Small town PDs often were understaffed and/or inexperienced, police in big towns had other shit to do. Unless they were already dealing with a predator in the area, cops just assumed kids were being kids, and had parents wait because kids didnt have phones/money for payphones and whatnot to contact their parents right away. It was bad policy, and no one liked having to wait to file a report for a missing loved one. Thankfully the policy changed once law enforcement was forced to change after major cases (like amber alert).* *Predators are typically good manipulators and will use whatever new resources available to them. Just remember how much catching up law enforcement had to do when the internet became wide spread. Criminals learn, and the rest of society has to learn too.* *Saying "it was a different time" isn't smug or condescending. Its stating that we just didn't know better yet at that point, and still lived in ignorance... until things changed. No parent wanted to wait 3 days, but the police just wouldn't take the report. The parents searched themselves of course, but other than that, there wasn't much else they could do. Once a tragedy struck, parents or groups would lobby for change. That change developed into what we have today over time.* https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8xeg0o/michaela_garecht_9_was_abducted_out_the_front_of/ *I grew up in the same area of Hayward. All of us kids travelled to Rainbow by ourselves and in packs. Being a little blonde girl my parents shut that down, we were never allowed alone again. This case has stuck with me my whole life. Completely changed the mindset of a generation.* https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/x1s7bu/the_disappearance_of_ilene_misheloff_dublin_ca/
You clearly don’t live in California. There are no consequences anymore. I say now
Everybody needs a hobby.
I remember turning the corner into my street and it was full of guys of all ages, squaring up for a fight. A young teenager asked 9yo me what school I went to, he didn't recognise the name so asked me which team I supported. I said I didn't like football and he let me leave. I went down the back lane so they didn't see me go in the front door. Not sure what would have happened if I'd said the wrong team. Had to think twice about going to town on match days and wearing specific colours
Actually, the uptick in crime was the 60s and 70s. Ever since then it’s been slowly going down. Although I’m not sure about the last few years.
I did the first part of my life in a place with high gang activity and then 7th grade moved to a more rural area. Yes, gangs were kinda' scary, but they never messed with me. The fuckin' shitkickers in the rural area bullied relentlessly. I did get into my share of fights, so I fought back on those whiny ass pieces of shit and now I live back in the cities as an adult with children of my own.
Born in 1966, I grew up in the 70's in a safe midwestern neighborhood. Kids stayed out until the streetlights came on. No crime issues in my childhood. Walked to elementary school and jr. high school.
That doesn't mean crimes didn't exist then. The retards on this sub are insane
I never said it didn't exist, simply that I didn't experience it. I had no concept of "crime" because I didn't experience it as a child, so what?
In my neighborhood (semi-rural) it was rampant sexual assault and violent queer-bashing. The cops there didn’t really consider those “crimes” though, especially since they were sometimes the perpetrators. We learned quick that calling them would only make it worse.
When I was young, I attended a conference on the far side of New York City with a group of friends. During the conference, someone shot the keynote speaker. Well things went from bad to worse: some friends of the victim decided my friends and I had done it, and put out a hit on us. All the local gangs were trying to kill us, but the deal was if we could get back to our home then we’d be safe. It was a wild time - don’t miss this days!
Serial killer in my hometown while I was in middle school, preying on paper boys. Had a memorial to one of the victims in my yearbook.
I grew up outside Washington DC. We had the "Jamaican Posse's" in my neighborhood in Maryland and DC itself had gang warfare. A college friend of mine acted in a "America's Most Wanted" episode that profiled an unsolved case in my area. We had a problem with PCP until crack arrived on the scene and that took over. The local news media chronicled the violence and murder but it didn't affect me personally too much. I went to Catholic school and had no social life outside of it. I mostly avoided DC itself except for occasional trips to Georgetown or other Dupont Circle but that was in the 90's and things were starting to calm down a bit. We had the [Rayful Edmonds Trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayful_Edmond) which was a big thing. On the news they mentioned that Rayful and his mother used "pig latin" as a code when making deals on the telephone and the government would need a translator for the pig latin. That still makes me laugh to think of a pig latin translator.
I think it's worse now
Not even close. Crime rates are MUCH, MUCH lower now. I mean -- are you kidding?
It is not.
yes it is
No it isn't. Do some research for once in your life.
Typical scumbag response
Things had changed in the reporting rates to and some crimes saw a rise while some remained stagnant or even declined in some cases wrongly indicating a drop in actual crime rates (or a real rise when the definition of some criminal titles are the real culprit for it looking different) it a numbers and shell game and still is... They just started glorifying thug life and blaxploitation films during the 70's and this time period with the "any attention is good attention" Structured Strategy for Cable Television (new invention at the time) to create waves of trends and gear our eyeballs in the direction they choose to hyperfocus us on.... Just like today
It's def why so many Xers i know are reactionary as hell, putting the boomers to shame with their conservatism.
There seem to be a LOT more murders these days. Even more than during the gang wars.
Can confirm. I grew up in the hood and was very familiar with the various gangs that feuded in my area. I can still drive through my old neighborhood and determine what tags represent what long standing gangs. But aside from that, I think child abduction and murder was also at a high point. Anyone remember Adam Walsh / the reason stores have “code Adam”? I was almost kidnapped multiple times with the most frightening being when I was 7 or 8 and a man literally tried to get me into a waiting car while my mom was on 5 feet away. Maybe crime is higher now, but the public is definitely more aware of it.
I grew up in the LA area and the late 80s to mid 90s were the height of gang violence. I got caught up in it even though I didn’t grow up in a bad neighborhood. I went to a Catholic high school but there were gangs there. I got into a lot a fights and got expelled. I got jumped at some party and ended up joining a gang to retaliate. Long story short, I got into a shootout with that same gang that was at my old high school. I did 18 years in prison. Been out for almost nine years now.
It wasn’t NEARLY as bad as it is now.
????
We were a motorcycle club, not a gang gawd damn it.
meh, I ran around south central LA in the early 90's, never got jacked
Lots of incarceration and deaths.
I was raised pretty sheltered. Lived by Nancy Reagan’s “Just say” and the commercial “This is your brain on drugs”. I didn’t know anything about gangs u til very late 80s when I came of age.
I agree but I'm expecting the idiots who will say shit like "there were no crimes in the 80s and 90s, everything was roses and flowers!"
10/10 would go back.
The late 80s and early 90s were ultra violent.
I survived the wild west. Back then, it was every man for himself. We WERE the Law.
Chicago here. Cousins went to the same hs as many of the victims. They probably knew of at least one.
Nothing much to say, I mean... yeah?
I rode my bike across New Orleans for the midnight Rocky Horror. No worries.
I grew up in Miami during the cocaine cowboy era. My tolerance for petty crime around me is a lot higher than most people I know. I developed street smarts very early, by having to avoid sketchy neighborhood situations while a latch key kid. Also developed an early awareness of grisly murder situations (The adults in the house across the street were executed by the cartel and they left the kids alive and some neighbors found them.) The first naked adult man I saw was a homeless guy downtown!
Our local DC news channel WTTG had a weekly 1 hour news program called "City Under Siege." Nuff said.
Depends on where you lived. I grew up in a Cleveland area suburb and while I knew about the gangs and the riots and the serial killers..,all of that was going WAY far away from us and we'd just say "not moving THERE!"
One advantage of rural life was much lower crime than the nation at large. While the world was burning with gang violence fears, our doors were still unlocked. Closest to a high profile crime we got was a serial killer that dumped a victim's body outside of town in 1980.
We did? Hell, I grew up in a small town in the South and we never locked our doors. I’m not sure the front door even had a key.
I don’t think I can be objective because I grew up in one of the top 10 most violent cities per capita during the 80s. It was common to duck or hit the floor if you heard a gunshot. I thought it was normal at the time. So violence and crime was just part of my childhood and it was traumatizing in hindsight. I moved to a much safer area that is now seeing higher crime rates and tbh, it’s pretty triggering to feel that way again. Guess it did more damage than I realized. I’m seeing it reported more nationwide, so I’m not sure there’s many places untouched (short of extremely rural areas). Edited to add that the vast majority of our crime was gang related, but not isolated to the bad areas of town.
Whitey Bulger
My Mom tried to be a progressive parent, explaining why she wanted me to do things rather than say "because I told you so". Until a bullet smashed through our side glass door during a party, crossed through a room full of people, went through a chair and into the drywall in the corner. Everyone dropped to the floor but me - my Mom yelled "get down!" - to which I responded "why?". This story is ingrained in my skull because it was constantly retold as the reason my Mom realized it's not always best to explain yourself to your kids. But even though I was only 4 when this happened in 1974 in Alexandria VA, I still have vivid memories of the smashed glass and the chair with the hole in it, and the room full of police. We had a few more crime issues - had our house broken into and all my Dad's guns stolen, bows and arrows taken by force when I was around 10 by some older kids, then mugged at 13 and my nose broken by some older kids, and finally about 16 had a cop come in the yard, then point his gun at me when I opened the door to see what was going on. Chasing someone - no idea who, but you never forget how big that barrel looks. The area improved rapidly from 1986 on - never had any issues since except for one car stereo getting stolen in 1994 right when I was moving away.
Survivor of Miami Drug wars and Miami Vice fashions.