My .02....
Violent crime looked at as a whole has likely gone down.
However, the violent crimes that DO occur are far more brutal, random, and unfortunately tend to be easier to accept than they used to be.
20-30 years ago if someone was caught in a violent crime they were shunned by both society and our court systems.
Nowadays we apparently have to figure out the skin colors involved before coming to any conclusion, and THAT is a breakdown of society, in my opinion.
We are no longer judging based on actions, but instead based on skin colors and then trying to excuse the actions.
30 years ago if a thug viciously attacked an innocent person and was shot, the thug was buried and victim given a pat on the back.
Now if a thug viciously attacks an innocent person everyone has to go 3 generations back to determine lineage. That is a hugely backward step, to me anyway.
One side affect of all us this is more and more people being armed. Now that's an interesting statistic to me, that 'established' law abiding people are walking around with guns in their pockets.
To me, I think that in itself is going to be part of the impetus for any breakdown... The sudden realization that if you brutally attack someone you could very well get shot for it.
It's certainly going to be an interesting 20 years as thug culture combined with law abiding society comes to a head.