On Friday morning I mentioned that the murder rate usually rise and falls in tandem with the violent crime rate. That got me a little curious about just how closely they follow each other, so I charted both since 1986, which is as far back as the FBI data goes:
That's close! And I think it illustrates pretty dramatically how unusual 2020 was and why it requires an explanation about not just why the murder rate went up, but why it suddenly become unmoored from the violent crime rate.
Social conservatives working extra hard to make sure marginal and unstable people have all the guns they need?
Huh. following "cld", one wonders if maybe there would be a correlation between "gunshot wounds occurring during crimes" and "murders", and whether that would stay correlated thru 2020. That is to say, maybe murders are no longer correlated with violent crime, but maybe they -are- with violent crimes involving guns ?
Dunno, just speculatin' on a hypothesis.
Maybe emergency services and hospitals were overwhelmed enough with covid cases, they couldn't provide the same level of care to gunshot victims, resulting in more murders?
Ding!
That is an excellent point.
To me this data screams "Big increase in domestic killings driving murder spike."
I'm still waiting to see evidemce of a big domestic violence spike. There are some hints but they're either speculative or tiny sample sizes.
If there was a big domestic violence spike,m enough to drive these stats, wouldn't that also show up as an increase in non-lethal domestic violence? The vast majority of domestic abuse is not homicide.
I tried but I couldn't find any statistic about attempted murder. I assume it mostly gets included in general violent crime or assault.
This graph still looks to me like it's the success rate of murder that's increasing, rather than murderous intent.
I have long thought that attempted murder should be treated the same as murder. I see no reason for a lighter sentence based on the perpetrator’s lack of success.
"... I see no reason for a lighter sentence based on the perpetrator’s lack of success."
Because the lack of success is often because the perp is less committed to killing the guy. He only shoots him 3 times instead of 10 times for example.
This comes up in other situations. You could argue that a drunk driver who doesn't kill anybody was just lucky but in many cases it was because they were actually less severely impaired.
Those shooters just need to find the drive to succeed of James Alex Fields, Jr.
Lawrence Singleton only cut off Mary Vincient’s arms and left her to die. Since she didn’t I suppose you could say he wasn’t sufficiently committed to killing her so his light sentence was justified. Roxanne Hayes might disagree.
Thug life. They are generally killing each other so… not sure I really care other than to just stay out of their way. Shooting last night in my local area… 21 year old injured but survived. Last weekend this happened in GR Michigan.
https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2021/06/up-to-20-people-firing-guns-118-shell-casings-collected-in-grand-rapids-park-melee-police-say.html
It’s nuts. Gangs, thugs, and useless degenerates. Let them kill each other. Good riddance. BLM… ha!
And that's just crap. The murder rate has skyrocketed in rural areas as well as in the cities. It's a predictable but still rather obviously racist reaction to immediately envision a murder rate increase that is entirely the province of gangs of dark-skinned people.
https://slate.com/business/2021/06/chicago-75th-st-shooting-boardwalk.html
I think you wish to minimize violence in back communities because it seems to validate racist republicans. And I suppose it does, but we ought no pretend all is well. They need to figure this out. Neither White folks nor the police are going to do it for them because people like you would accuse them of racism. So the violence goes on. Funny how that works.
I wish we were living in a Tupacolypse Now.
As it is, we're stuck in justin's white power skins slampit.
The people in that park in GR last weekend are living in some kind of dystopia. Is that what you want for them? I live in a nice quiet suburban area where there are no such risks. It’s really not my place to tell the thugs how to live. If they want to shoot at each other in the middle of the night, far be it from me to tell them it’s wrong. It’s their culture. Thug life.
I havn't heard such blatant racism since "Buddy Holly" & "Come Out n' Play" were burning up rock radio in 1994.
The fact that this violence is endemic to a faction of people who happen to be black is beyond dispute. Whatcha gonna do about it? Nothing. They are free to kill each other… this faction of people. And I’m am free to not give a hoot.
Celebration of Juneteenth!
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/06/19/chicago-weekend-gun-violence-june-18-21-2021/
Just another weekend of black lives not mattering. 🤦🏾
Kevin, when are you going to do something about the racist posts? They don't need to be here.
Equating "thug life" with BLM does not earn respect for your views.
Mr. drum has made this observation before… the increase in murder is almost exclusively a feature of gang wars. It’s a shame the BLM movement couldn’t arrange a truce because it really does undermine their cause. If we want the police to stop shooting blacks, the easiest way to accomplish that is for the criminal elements to stand down. But…you and I both know they won’t because ultimately lives simply don’t matter to them.
BS. The murder rate has gone up just as much out in the sticks - that is, in rural, white America - as it has in the cities.
If you say so. I actually hope you are correct, though I really don’t think you are. In any event, it doesn’t change the fact that in the poor black community where Black Lives Matter, this problem is real. Good luck.
If actual statistics say so?
Can you link to stats for this, not just make unsupported assertions? You may well be right, but this is the first time I'm seeing such a claim.
The closing of borders during COVID has interrupted normal routes for illegal drugs. I would hypothesize that most of the excess murders since then result from various gangs and cartels fighting over sources, supply routes and territories. That's pretty clearly what's going on where I live (Vancouver, Canada). - And there are drugs in small towns "out in the sticks" too, as any West Virginian can tell you.
One obvious possibility is that neither is true and it’s merely a statistical fluctuation and/or some data-collection variation due to COVID. If it continues in and past ‘21 then I’d say there’s a there there.
And even if it’s not a statistical fluctuation, it may just be a real consequence of COVID. People isolated from their peers and enemies for a year, but also cooped up with their families for a year — I can see either of those having a significant effect. Again, I’d wait and see before declaring a trend.
It's continued on trend in 2021 so far.
As a service to your readers please consider at least linking to a definition of "violent crime" each time you mention it. Also, presumably murder is included in violent crime. Why aren't you comparing murder trends with trends in violent crime other than murder?
Because it isn't necessary. The murder rate is a tiny fraction of the overall violent crime rate, so fluctuations in the former do not meaningfully change the latter by themselves.
Fleshing out your point:
In 2019, an estimated 1,203,808 violent crimes occurred nationwide.
In 2019, the estimated number of murders in the nation was 16,425.
Aggravated assaults accounted for 68.2 percent of violent crimes reported to law enforcement in 2019. Robbery offenses accounted for 22.3 percent of violent crime offenses; rape (legacy definition) accounted for 8.2 percent; and murder accounted for 1.4 percent.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/violent-crime (mostly)
There is not much point in speculating about this without more information on perpetrators and victims. It is probably too soon to even form working hypotheses. The FBI report should have at least some of this information when it comes out:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s
about 2/3's of gun deaths are due to suicides. Mass shootings get headlines, increase of suicides--not so much. And suicides are everywhere, but not considered in most discussions of gun violence.
NPR has a good general discussion on gun violence:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/03/952969760/2020-was-a-record-breaking-year-for-gun-related-deaths-in-the-u-s
From The Guardian:
"Mark Bryant, the Gun Violence Archive founder, said analysts tracking daily media reports of gun violence saw a large number of drive-by shootings contributing to the rising toll, as well as domestic violence killings and “club shootings” at pop-up parties held despite public health restrictions. "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/24/us-murders-extra-4000-everyday-gun-violence
see also:
https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-more-gun-deaths-than-any-year-over-two-decades-2021-3
The two major 'sources' of murder are (1) drug related (users or sellers) and (2) domestic abusers killing someone. If there is a major change in patterns, I would look at these sources and how law enforcement is interacting with the people involved with these activities. Random murder is really pretty rare.
There seems be many more "road rage" shootings, though probably still small overall--just scarier for the general public.
A conservative take I heard on this was that overall crime is going up (on account of riots and police defunding) but they are only prosecuting/ addressing the most serious crimes -- murders. I spose that could result in the discrepancy indicated here...?
Kevin only gives the source as FBI. Would be nice to know specifics of the dataset, but it’s almost certain these are reported crimes, not arrests, prosecutions or convictions. So, no, on the conservative take.
The question it raises for me is, is this a U.S. phenomenon or a worldwide one? Is there any way to expand the statistics to include other countries? If it is worldwide and starts in 2020, that would seem to point to a Covid effect of some sort.