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[Guevara]

Murder rates rose significantly in 25 of the nation’s 100 largest cities last year, according to an analysis by The New York Times of new data compiled from individual police departments.

The findings confirm a trend that was tracked recently in a study published by the National Institute of Justice. “The homicide increase in the nation’s large cities was real and nearly unprecedented,” wrote the study’s author, Richard Rosenfeld, a criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who explored homicide data in 56 large American cities.

In the Times analysis, half of the increase came from just seven cities — Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Nashville and Washington.

Chicago had the most homicides — 488 in 2015 — far more than the 352 in New York City, which has three times as many people. Baltimore had the largest increase — 133 more than 2014 — and the second-highest rate in 2015, after St. Louis, which had 59 homicides per 100,000 residents.

The number of cities where rates rose significantly was the largest since the height of violent crime in the early 1990s.

In his study, Dr. Rosenfeld said that rising crime might be linked to less aggressive policing that resulted from protests of high-profile police killings of African-Americans. But he said this hypothesis, a version of the so-called Ferguson effect, which has spurred heated debate among lawmakers and criminologists, must be further evaluated.

There is no consensus on what caused the recent spike, and each city appears to have unique circumstances contributing to the uptick.

No End in Sight for Chicago’s Violence

In Chicago, homicides were concentrated in highly segregated pockets that are predominantly black. A fifth of Chicago’s killings took place in just two police districts on the city’s West and South Sides, which are also among the city’s poorest.

What’s Behind the Surge of Killings in Baltimore?

In 2015, Baltimore’s murder rate not only increased the most among the 100 top cities, it also reached a historic high of 55 homicides per 100,000 residents. Its previous record high was in 1993, when the rate was 48.

Some experts attribute the sudden spike in violence largely to a flood of black-market opiates looted from pharmacies during riots in April 2015. The death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody, had set off the city’s worst riots since the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

During the riots, nearly 315,000 doses of drugs were stolen from 27 pharmacies and two methadone clinics, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, a number much higher than the 175,000 doses the agency initially estimated.

Most of the homicides in Baltimore were connected to the drug trade, and what happened in 2015 was a result of more people “getting into the game of selling drugs,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist at the University of Baltimore.

Police commanders have said that an oversupply of inventory from looting resulted in a violent battle for customers among drug gangs.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/08/us/us-murder-rates.html

Much more, plus charts and graphs at the link.

Stay safe out there

 

[Gutek]

This country needs more good paying low skill jobs.

 

[Ogodei]

The heroin epidemic probably has a lot to do with it. Combine that with "industrial action" by some police units in the wake of the Ferguson protests and there you go.

 

[SliceSabre]

I live not far from Cleveland(Akron) so I get their news and it is amazing how often I hear about how someone got shot and killed or just shot or robbed. Shit is crazy out there.

 

[kirblar]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

 

[CloudyTuba]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

I've read before that murders are more frequent in hotter weather. As temperatures rise more people get killed. It's probably a combination of things, but it certainly isn't helping.

 

[Hazmat]

Holy shit, St. Louis had 59 homicides for each 100,000 people? If they had the population of Chicago or New York that would be 1593 or 5015 homicides. What the hell is going on to cause this level of violent crime in Missouri?

 

[Deadstar]

Need to fix the economy.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

 

[High Fry Frow]

Wow, I'm feeling better and better about moving to Belgium next year.

 

[teh_J0kerer]

I don't quite get the headline.. couldn't they have made the opposite story with "murder rate falls in 75% of the country's largest cities?"

 

[Futureman]

I don't quite get the headline.. couldn't they have made the opposite story with "murder rate falls in 75% of the country's largest cities?"

not necessarily. Many of the other cities may have similar rates to previous years.

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

This is just data being reported on. And the NYT will report what is happening out there. Republicans like to smear the paper, but I think they are pretty even and their non-political reporting is phenomenal.

 

[darkhunger]

It's been an upward trend in violent crime in those cities since before Ferguson. Seasonal stuff might serve a factor but they said the same thing last year as well. So... Whatever it is, something really needs to be done to reverse this trend.

I don't quite get the headline.. couldn't they have made the opposite story with "murder rate falls in 75% of the country's largest cities?"

That's not what the data says though. It says that murder rates are rising significantly in 25% of the largest cities.

 

[Abounder]

Temperature would be low on the totem pole for a spike in murder, I'd rank poverty and the drug war over that. Plus the police and other infrastructure like schools have been falling apart for the more violent areas, perpetuating the vicious cycle of revenge killing.

In Chicago, homicides were concentrated in highly segregated pockets that are predominantly black. A fifth of Chicago’s killings took place in just two police districts on the city’s West and South Sides, which are also among the city’s poorest.

And my fellow Americans wanted to host the Olympics @ Chicago. Sure the violence may be segregated but goddamn at those optics.

 

[HyperCroutons]

Buffalo has had a bloody summer too with homicides and a big cause of these are the illegal drugs. I work in a rough part of the city and most of the areas were homicides happen are were drug dealers sell there stuff. Really scary especially for the residents of the commuinity because they usually get caught in the cross-fire.

 

[Guevara]

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

The article mentions Trump, of course:

Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has said that crime is “out of control” and that decades of progress are now being reversed. But the Times analysis shows that the rise in homicides is much more nuanced; while violence is up in a number of cities, it’s not soaring across the nation.​

Trump is wrong, it's still historically safe and rates are spiking mostly against low bases. That said, it certainly helps his message. For a long time he's been saying crime is out of control, and now so does the front page of the New York Times.

 

[Mesousa]

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

Its not really an argument as much as its simply stating a fact.

 

[TyrantII]

25% of a small number is a small number.

Trend deserves watching, but this isn't too significant looking at decade long tracking highs.

Edit, just how misleading it is even I got it wrong. It's 25% of cities saw a rise, which isn't really confronted. Most could very well be statistical flukes.

This is bad journalism.

 

[tearsintherain]

Police have also stopped the racist stop and frisk policies in most of these cities, which took a lot of guns off the drug corners. Stop and frisk is down 80% in Chicago this year, while gun shootings are up 88% and murders are up 70%.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-stop-and-frisks-down-80-percent-in-2016/1182604/

I also wonder if cops are on a sort of "see what happens when we don't go around banging heads" message, believing citizens will just throw up their hands and say "fine, be racist, do whatever, just get crime down again". I think this was even an episode of South Park last year

 

[Henkka]

I don't quite get the headline.. couldn't they have made the opposite story with "murder rate falls in 75% of the country's largest cities?"

Uh, no? The story says that in 25 cities, murder rates rose "significantly". You can't really tell what happened in the other 75 from that. Could've stayed the same.

 

[Guevara]

I don't quite get the headline.. couldn't they have made the opposite story with "murder rate falls in 75% of the country's largest cities?"

It's more like:

25 cities saw a "significant rise"
5 cities saw a significant decrease
70 cities were unchanged

 

[Mesousa]

Temperature would be low on the totem pole for a spike in murder, I'd rank poverty and the drug war over that. Plus the police and other infrastructure like schools have been falling apart for the more violent areas, perpetuating the vicious cycle of revenge killing.



And my fellow Americans wanted to host the Olympics @ Chicago. Sure the violence may be segregated but goddamn at those optics.

Rio has/had just as much of a crime and segregation problem and hosted a fine olympics.

 

[Henkka]

Police have also stopped the racist stop and frisk policies in most of these cities, which took a lot of guns off the drug corners. Stop and frisk is down 80% in Chicago this year, while gun shootings are up 88% and murders are up 70%.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-stop-and-frisks-down-80-percent-in-2016/1182604/

I also wonder if cops are on a sort of "see what happens when we don't go around banging heads" message, believing citizens will just throw up their hands and say "fine, be racist, do whatever, just get crime down again". I think this was even an episode of South Park last year

Why would you wonder that? The cop in the story you linked says he doesn't think there's a correlation.

edit: or wait, shouldn't it be causation?

 

[sans_pants]

Turn Chicago into hamsterdam

 

[bootsthecat]

Turn Chicago into hamsterdam

Most of these murders are gang warfare though, right? A hampsterdam scenario would just open the areas up for more turf-related violence.

Rio has/had just as much of a crime and segregation problem and hosted a fine olympics.

On top of that, as most anyone who has been to/lives in Chicago can tell you, you would never encounter anything like that unless you somehow take multiple wrong turns to the areas in question. The 'normal' parts of Chicago and immediate suburbs are as safe as they get. Olympics there would be glorious!

 

[Brakke]

Holy shit, St. Louis had 59 homicides for each 100,000 people? If they had the population of Chicago or New York that would be 1593 or 5015 homicides. What the hell is going on to cause this level of violent crime in Missouri?

St. Louis is kind of tricky when it comes to crime stats because the city is an "Independent City", which means it isn't part of a county. The municipal lines are weird there.

Just quickly glancing at the methodology in the linked study, it looks like they're defining "city" as metro police department jurisdictions. So these are murders handled by the St. Louis Metro Police Department. St. Louis city has a population of ~300k, compared to the 1 million people who live in St Louis County. Essentially, the stats reflect the city core, which doesn't resemble the greater St Louis metro area.

This caveat probably applies to a bunch of "cities" in the study. Crime doesn't respect municipal boundaries and municipal boundaries are defined pretty arbitrarily from place to place. If you want to understand urban crime, these stats are useful but narrowly. If you want a more full picture of crime in an area, you need to ignore municipal boundaries and look at Greater Metro Areas or something. But doing makes data collection more complicated, and requires making up broadly-applicable definition for "Greater Metro Area", so it's easy to collect stats at the police department level.

 

[Shake Appeal]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

First thing I thought of, actually.

 

[Nerokis]

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

why not read the article instead of asking bizarre questions like this

it's fairly solid, and doesn't at all paint a picture of some horrible nationwide violence epidemic along Trumpian lines

it's just putting the rise in homicide rates in context, and it's really strange how many people here are apparently reflexively allergic to the topic being breached at all

Uh, no? The story says that in 25 cities, murder rates rose "significantly". You can't really tell what happened in the other 75 from that. Could've stayed the same.

No one is reading the article.

 

[Langdon Alger]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

I don't think the heat has anything to do with this.

 

[diablos991]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

It's something in the water!!!

 

[Crocodile]

The record heat almost certainly to blame for a lot of this.

Something my dad says all the time - I'm becoming more convinced he was just straight up right

Police have also stopped the racist stop and frisk policies in most of these cities, which took a lot of guns off the drug corners. Stop and frisk is down 80% in Chicago this year, while gun shootings are up 88% and murders are up 70%.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-stop-and-frisks-down-80-percent-in-2016/1182604/

I also wonder if cops are on a sort of "see what happens when we don't go around banging heads" message, believing citizens will just throw up their hands and say "fine, be racist, do whatever, just get crime down again". I think this was even an episode of South Park last year

I mean they ended "stop & frisk" in New York City and murder is down there so anyone seriously trying to argue "stop & frisk" actually curtails murders is going to have a bad time

 

[entremet]

Is the times repping Trump now? This is the exact same argument he's been making previously.

LOL. The NYT has been doing some very intense reporting on Trump's shady business deals and history of racial issues.

This is a national story. They should report on it.

 

[timetokill]

Yes, let's definitely not report on crime numbers if they might help Trump's campaign

The news will return.... after November.

 

[makingmusic476]

The heat argument makes sense for the spike in crime over the unusually warm winter months, but I don't think it'd be influential in months that are quite hotter every year, like what we've seen in July and August.

 

[turtle553]

I don't think the heat has anything to do with this.

When I was in college, a homeless guy lived under the stairs next door. He said killings went up in the summer because most low income housing lacks air conditioning so more people are out and interacting. Everyone has heat in the winter and can just stay indoors. Not sure how much truth there is to it, but it makes some sense.

 

[Kinitari]

Welp, flying out to Chicago from Toronto next week for work, and trying to not let it get to my head.

I won't get shot in just the 3 days I'm there, right? Right?

 

[The Faceless Master]

I mean they ended "stop & frisk" in New York City and murder is down there so anyone seriously trying to argue "stop & frisk" actually curtails murders is going to have a bad time

was gonna post this.

don't have to, thanks Crocodile!

 

[BobLoblaw]

I'm curious about the correlation between stop and frisk going down and the increase in gun violence. I'm waiting for the inevitable study for this year and see if it continues through next year.

 

[ezrarh]

It's something in the water!!!

Probably lead.

 

[Mesousa]

Welp, flying out to Chicago from Toronto next week for work, and trying to not let it get to my head.

I won't get shot in just the 3 days I'm there, right? Right?

Unless you work at a footlocker or a liquor store I am sure your job won't have you anywhere near the areas of chicago that are violent.

 

[Kinitari]

Unless you work at a footlocker or a liquor store I am sure your job won't have you anywhere near the areas of chicago that are violent.

I work at a liquor and sneaker selling startup!


...


So I'm gonna be okay, I guess I know that intellectually, just guns scare the bejeesus out of me. I'm trying not to get an irrational fear of the U.S.

 

[NuclearRisotto]

Wow, I'm feeling better and better about moving to Belgium next year.

If you're wanting to avoid getting blown up or shot I think you might want to consider another place.

Just sayin'

 

[Arials]

25% of a small number is a small number.

United States murder rate: 3.9
United Kingdom murder rate: 0.9

It's a 25% increase in a number that's already way too big.

 

[Joyful]

its probably not the guns

 

[Gutek]

Welp, flying out to Chicago from Toronto next week for work, and trying to not let it get to my head.

I won't get shot in just the 3 days I'm there, right? Right?

You'll probably be in/around the loop. You're going to be fine.

 

[Christopher]

Temperature does not make people kill each other...what kind of stupidness are we sprouting here?

 

[Gutek]

Temperature does not make people kill each other...what kind of stupidness are we sprouting here?

There are more killings during summer/warm months.
Probably because people are outside more often/longer.

People here try to make it into a global warming issue.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

The legacy of Democratic mayors. What the hell do you have to lose?

 

[NuclearRisotto]

its probably not the guns

It's not.

It's criminals with illegal guns they buy off arms dealers on the street.

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

Police have also stopped the racist stop and frisk policies in most of these cities, which took a lot of guns off the drug corners. Stop and frisk is down 80% in Chicago this year, while gun shootings are up 88% and murders are up 70%.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-stop-and-frisks-down-80-percent-in-2016/1182604/

I also wonder if cops are on a sort of "see what happens when we don't go around banging heads" message, believing citizens will just throw up their hands and say "fine, be racist, do whatever, just get crime down again". I think this was even an episode of South Park last year

same thing in NYC, but the opposite result.