Fewer crimes happen these days yes, but that just means that the media can cover more of them that do happen, so we are more informed of crime than we ever have been in the past.
Thus, the news sources end up propagating this false idea that crime is actually on the rise because they work hard at keeping this news always at the forefront of people's minds.
Yes, it's fiction, but it is fiction that relies on verisimilitude for effect, i.e. it isn't fantasy. It has to seem real, which undoubtedly has an effect on what people perceive as real. With a steady diet of fictional crime one could easily be persuaded that crime is more common than it is.
I wonder if paradoxically this also helps to lower the incidence of crime, as the payoff in crime fiction is usually the criminal getting caught.
Edit: for example, there are 476 hits on Boston.com's news wire for the word "murder" over the past 30 days. That's more than 14/day! http://search.boston.com/local/Search.do?s.sm.query=murder&#...
TFA cheerfully ignores the role of local news media in hyping up any story of violent crime and encouraging anxiety and paranoia when it comes to crime in general.
"Are your children endangered by crazed illegal immigrant serial killer internet pedophile terrorists in their school right now? Find out, tonight at 11."
Take the Lacey act: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sec_16_00003372----...
It is unlawful for any person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase any fish or wildlife or plant taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any law, treaty, or regulation of the United States or in violation of any Indian tribal law;
Can you really say every piece of food you've ever acquired followed every required law? Did the truckdriver speed? It seems to me, you can be fined as much as the ticket would have cost the driver.