Violent crime had not been surging upwards for decades. The 90s' highest year, 1993, was about where it was in 1980 when Reagan took office, under whose governance the rate dipped a bit before coming back up (how's that for leaving the place better than you found it?). What we saw was the rate ticking up only slightly in Clinton's first couple of years.

http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod...

Possibly there is a soft definition of what constitutes "violent crime"? The numbers on Wikipedia show a clear trend that doesn't abate until the mid 90s. Am I reading that wrong?

(click "show" on the table to see the data) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Cri...

And nothing better than to simultaneously note that a support of unionized cops on the street + demographics-based decline in crime soon to follow would be an almost guaranteed winning policy for re-election for a Dem.