Why are crimes getting more perverse?

Today a nut case ran into the Oregon Senate chamber with a big knife and threatened to kill himself. Now, as after every "incident" these days, everyone's talking about what new security measures will be necessary for the capitol building. Up to this point there were none, apparently. At some point in the future we will live and breathe security. Surveillance will permeate our lives as much as the water we drink.

So why are crimes and vandalism getting more violent and ugly? Are people just more desperate and angry? Nah. Is our society producing more psychologically unstable individuals? Nah. Although we live in a society that can be sterile, unjust, polluted, artificial, and cruel, the real reason why crimes are more heinous now than ever is because acts of violence and law breaking are in a dialectic with law enforcement. Aggressive law enforcement and stricter laws beget more imaginative and desperate crimes, which beget more severe punishments and more prohibitions, and so on. Even if we do have fewer crimes now than before, they are unquestionably more extreme and bizarre. Hey, it's the war on terror in miniature!

Why didn't some nut storm the Senate chamber 25 years ago when every one was high and pissed off at the "establishment, man"? There have always been crazy, dangerous people, but could it have been that there were closer community bonds that kept antisocial behavior in check, that was more local and personal than any modern law enforcement system? Even if I may have a tendency to be serial rapist, chances are I am less likely to act on such dark impulses if I, or my family, knows everyone in the neighborhood. The act would be too personal and close to home.

These days, however, few of us really ever get to know our neighbors. And more often than not, we see people whom we don't know by default as obstacles, competitors to our personal happiness. What we consider to be our community is a geographically diffuse network of different social groups: the people I know from work, the dive shop, my friends I see movies with, the guys in my bands, my family members that live all over the place.