I live about an hour or so west of Evansville in S. Illinois, small town 10k or so people, and it's the same type of crap.  Low crime was one reason why I liked living in a small town.  Not so much anymore.  Just last week a well known local homeless guy was beat to death in one of the neighborhoods I run through every morning.

Oh yeah? Well what about this coo-coo clock:

"On 05/10/2015 at 1847 hours, police responded to a 911 call on Ellenel Blvd for a report of an intruder in the house. Upon arrival, officers came in contact with Jason Hubbard who was inside the house on Ellenel Blvd. Police subsequently placed Hubbard under arrest for Criminal Trespass.

Further investigation revealed that Hubbard entered the home through an open door, three days prior, when the homeowner was taking out the garbage. After entering the house, he proceeded into a spare bedroom where he stayed under a bed for 3 days. He also began charging his 4 cell phones utilizing an electric outlet under the bed.

Hubbard remained living under the bed in the spare bedroom until the homeowner heard a noise in the bedroom. When the homeowner looked under the bed, he found Hubbard and immediately called police.

At the conclusion of the investigation, Hubbard was also charged with Burglary and Theft of Services (electric current). He was transported to Spotswood Police Headquarters where he was processed as per departmental policy. He was then transported to Middlesex County Adult Corrections Center in lieu of $50,000.00 bail."

 

 

I am getting sick of this, the very city where I grew up, spent countless nights walking around with friends at 3 AM, driving around while teens late at night and I no longer feel it is safe for kids to do these things anymore.

Evansville wasn't always like this, sure we had our occasional issues but it was never this bad, everyday there is news about gun shots and hell a well known DJ was murdered earlier this week... ... it just pisses me off 

The Evansville crime rate data over the years has some ups & downs, but no noticeable increasing trend. (Although appears it has not followed the nationwide trend of generally decreasing crime rates.) Is it possible you pay more attention to the news now than when you were a teenager? Or worry more about these things since becoming a mom? It has probably never been a good idea to be walking around at 3AM, but as teenagers we feel pretty much invincible.

Yesterday was a bad day in the news all around. Theater shooting in Louisiana. Two brothers apparently hacked up nearly their entire family in Oklahoma (mom, dad and 3 of 5 younger siblings dead, 1 in critical condition).

 

I think a lot of "things are worse" feeling is because we know more about what is happening everywhere now due to multiple 24-hour news channels, plus the 'net and social media. What would have only been "news" in that town 30 years ago now feeds the machine and feeds our fears.

This.  I never watch the local news.  They are depressing.

It was nothing like this when I was a teen, my mom watched the news the same then as she does now and she is constantly texting or calling me now about things happening around here. Not long after I got out of high school, I heard of girls hitting and beating the shit out of teachers in my high school, that shit NEVER happened when I was there or when my sisters were there before me. People talk and word gets around and if shit like this was happening when I was a teen, I would've heard about it. There's more cops out these days than there were when I was a teen, we walked along streets and out in the open and rarely saw a cop, now... they're everywhere. This shit is even moving from the South side to the East and North side of the city, it was never this bad.

Evansville has never been a great or good city, but compared to Indy, Chicago and New York and other cities of it's size or larger, Evansville was a great place when I was growing up. Kids are either stuck on their phones or tablets, or out destroying shit now. It probably had 2-3 decades of going great before now, when my mom was a teen/young adult it was pretty bad but only really on the South side and stayed there, then from the 80's to now it has been pretty quite up until about 3-5 years ago and has been slowly increasing.

As our populations increase all around the world, there is a greater number of crimes and we hear more about them with our new forms of media. It's only logical. Also, greater populations often bring greater social problems.

I am not so concerned with the problems in my little town, or the bigger one next to it, or even my own country, as I am concerned with the problems in the rest of the world. Because in the end, what's happening there will have a huge impact on my children's lives...

I have lived in the burbs my whole life but shit still happens. My town has had 2 big murders since we bought our home. 1 town near where I grew up had a triple murder that 1 or both Boston Marathon bombers may have had a role in. Nothing surprises me anymore.