After World War 2 there was a noticeable upsurge in violence across America. Partly because the crime rate dropped precipitously during the war years 1941-1945 owing to large numbers of youth and young adults serving in the military. Once the war was over it was back to business as usual, only the numbers and types of crime had risen past pre-war figures. By the late 1940s, homicide rates had roughly doubled compared to the early 1940s wartime low, reaching levels similar to the 1930s.
Burglary, theft, and auto theft also rose after 1945. This was tied to postwar economic dislocations, housing shortages, and the rapid adjustment of millions of families to peacetime.
Organized crime expanded its influence in gambling, labor racketeering, and later narcotics, especially in cities like New York and Chicago.
There was widespread concern about rising youth crime in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Authorities attributed this to returning fathers clashing with teenagers who had grown up without them, urban overcrowding, and the growing influence of movies and comics.
The “juvenile delinquent” became a major cultural figure by the early 1950s.
Still, newspapers and policymakers in the late 1940s often described the crime wave as a national emergency, with Senate hearings (e.g., the Kefauver Committee, 1950–51) focused on organized crime and corruption.
This episode, the fourth from the weekly CBS Radio Series “You And . . .” features an interview with Manuel Robbins, former head of the Indictment Bureau of the New York District Attorney. They discuss Criminal prosecution and the steps taken to reduce the levels of major crime in the City of New York, and hopefully serve as a model for the rest of the country in combatting the atmosphere of criminal activity on American streets and in American homes.
Like everything, the world of 1949 was a universe apart from the world of 2025. But crime was (and is) crime and ways of dealing with it have stayed pretty much the same.
Here is that episode from “You And . . .Crime” from December 13, 1949.
