I agree with a lot of your observations, especially about music and peanut butter, but it turns out violent crime peaked in the early 90s and we've seen a significant reduction in the years since. If you're much older than 50 you have a better argument, but from a crime-reduction point of view, we've improved dramatically over the last couple of decades.
A few quick facts I pulled from the data on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics site.
In the aggregate, violent crime is at about the same rate it was in 1973:
The homicide rate is the same as it was in 1965
Property crimes are at the same rate they were in 1968.

Great show and good reference. There are lots of places above the arctic circle and below the tree line. Ugly map

Here's a better story on the issue you cite.

I'm not sure where you got the information about an independent survey ... it's contradicted in the article. And the other reasons for the cancellation are also covered in this story.