Crime: The Deadliest Year Yet

Why do Americans kill one another in such appalling numbers? By the time police add up the final tally, 1991 will be the bloodiest year in U.S. history: as many as 25,000 murders, compared with last year's record of 23,440. The U.S. homicide rate -- by far the highest in the Western world -- may average about 10 killings for every 100,000 citizens, vs. 1.3 in Japan and 5.5 in Britain. Every 22 minutes, another American is shot, stabbed, beaten or strangled to death.

No place seems exempt from the slaughter. New homicide records have been set in cities as large as Dallas (501) and Washington (489) and as small as Anchorage (26) and San Antonio (211). More people are being killed by strangers. Murder is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace. The easy availability of firearms means that a single flash of anger can lead to another grim statistic, and sociologists fear that people thrown out of work in the recession will take their anger out on their former bosses and co- workers or families. The Federal Centers for Disease Control, whose job is to investigate outbreaks of disease, now considers murder an epidemic.

Worst of all, an increasing number of murders are going unsolved. Twenty- five years ago, 9 out of 10 murderers were tracked down and brought to justice. Now the rate is less than 7 out of 10. Police complain that they have so many killings to investigate that they must concentrate on the simplest cases and put more complex slayings on the back burner. The consequences can be grievous. FBI behavioral-science experts suspect that at least one serial killer contributed repeatedly to New York City's 1991 death toll of more than 2,200. But the suspect -- or suspects -- remains at large because detectives have little time to compare notes.

One alarming factor is the emergence of a new breed of teenage killers who seem to have lost all respect for human life. The idea of having a knife or a , gun has moved beyond the drug subculture to infect a large segment of all young people. A CDC study found that 1 out of 5 high school students enters the classroom carrying a gun, knife or club.

Many of the rash killings are truly senseless. Last week a 14-year-old Brooklyn girl was charged with stabbing her 13-year-old boyfriend to death simply because he wanted to break up with her. In September a 23-year-old Chicago woman was convicted of the drive-by shooting of a teenage boy at a fast-food restaurant. Reason: he was wearing the colors of a rival gang. Her two-month-old twin daughters were sitting in the backseat of her car when she pulled the trigger.

That case has crystallized the fears of law-enforcement officials that one generation, already hopelessly inured to violence, may be handing down its bloodthirsty values to the young. The lock-'em-up approach to law enforcement exemplified by tough mandatory-sentencing laws adopted by the federal and most state governments over the past decade has not slowed the mayhem. In fact, some experts believe it may actually strengthen the violent code of behavior that prevails among many urban teenage males. "It is now a rite of passage that you must go to prison on at least a misdemeanor," says Jerome Miller of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in the Washington area. "What you see on the street is the ethics of a maximum-security prison."