The book Fortress America [1] posits that, in America at least, it has been a long shifting of the fear from red to black. Basically, after USSR was defeated, we shifted more vigorously into a "law and order" society. Politicians and the media played up the threat (even though all data was showing a safer society) of gangs and "thugs".

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Fortress-America-Embraced-Abandoned-D...