Interesting. Do you have any sources of information to back that up? It contradicts my perception of things, and I would like to know if I've been operating under a faulty understanding. Example: according to this [1] article : per-capita murder rates were something on the order of 30/100000 in colonial times, 15/100000 in the "wild west" period compared to 6/100000 today.

[1] https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent...