Popular Information - The truth about crime in America
In March 2020, as the pandemic took hold of the United States, I decided to take down Popular Information's paywall. For the last year and a half, every edition of Popular Information has been available for free. I made that decision for a couple of reasons:
I’m not sure when the pandemic will end, but I'm hoping to be able to keep this newsletter free for as long as possible. Subscriptions, however, are Popular Information's only source of revenue. So here is the deal: For every 30 people that sign up for a paid subscription today, I will keep the paywall down for everyone for another month. Your support will help keep Popular Information's groundbreaking accountability journalism accessible to everyone and maximize its impact. If the cost of this newsletter ($6/month or $50/year) would create any kind of financial strain, please stay on this free list. But, if you can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Between now and November 2022, you will likely hear a lot about an alleged crime wave that is sweeping the country. Many Republicans are already keying in on the issue, including Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who authored a piece about crime for Breitbart. The article is accompanied by pictures of people committing various property crimes. You might be surprised to learn that, according to FBI data cited by Cotton, property crime declined significantly in 2020. It continues a decades-long trend of fewer property crimes. The same FBI data shows that, overall, crime decreased. But violent crime did go up about 5%. Is that a "crime wave"? Let's put last year's increase in violent crime in context. Can the small increase in violent crime in 2020 be fairly classified as a crime wave? Violent crime remains far below its peak in the 1990s and is significantly lower than in the early 2000s. For the last decade, violent crime has been essentially flat and 2020 did not change that trend. If you isolate homicides, however, there was a significant increase in 2020 of 26%. Still, the rate of homicides remains well below its peak in the 1990s. 2020 was an unusual year, with normal life disrupted with pandemic-related restrictions. So the increase may not reflect a long-term trend. Still, every homicide is a tragedy and it's worth exploring the cause of the increase. Cotton posits that "Democrat mayors, progressive prosecutors, and liberal governors are to blame." This claim does not hold up to scrutiny. Wyoming, a state with a Republican governor and dominated by Republican officials, had the largest spike in homicides among the 23 states that reported data, 92%. The second-largest spike in murders, 67%, was in South Dakota, which also has a Republican governor. Cotton highlights that "murder rose 50 percent in Chicago, 44 percent in New York, and 38 percent in Los Angeles" — cities run by Democrats. But he doesn't mention that murder rates rose 62% in Ft. Worth, Texas, which has a Republican mayor. Or that Jacksonville, another city with a Republican mayor, is the "murder capital" of Florida. A report by the think tank Third Way notes that "in conservative media outlets like Fox News there is a drumbeat that overly permissive crime policies enacted by Democrats are putting Americans at risk to violent crime." But the "data does not back this assertion." For overall crime, "seven out of the twelve states with decreasing overall crime rates between 2019 and 2020 have Democratic governors" and "[f]our out of eight states with increasing crime rates have Republican governors." The abuse of crime statistics by Cotton and many other Republicans for political purposes makes it more difficult for Americans to understand the truth. It also makes it more difficult to identify and implement policies that could actually make the country safer. Police reform is not responsible for the rise in murdersOne common argument among Republicans is that the rise in murders is the result of police reforms implemented in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, which took center stage after the murder of George Floyd. “During the fall and winter [of 2020] mayors and governors waged a relentless campaign to defund, disarm, and defame police officers,” Cotton said in the article. But the data shows little relation between reforming police conduct, reduction in police funding, and increased murder rates. A report by Third Way looked at the 21 states that “passed legislation or issued executive orders to improve policing and justice” in 2020. Massachusetts, which created new training courses and oversight commissions, experienced the lowest increase in murder rate among jurisdictions included in the study. In Colorado, California, and Nevada, all states that passed new police reforms, crime rates were flat. Wyoming and South Dakota, two states that passed no police reform legislation, experienced steep increases in murder and violent crime. The police were not "defunded" last year. Most "cities increased their police budgets last year, with the budgets decreasing in just 37 of the 105" major cities that reported the data. Cities that reduced their police budget “were about as likely” to have an increase in murder rates as the cities that increased their budgets. The report found that murder increased in 84 percent of the cities that lowered their budgets, but also in 79 percent of the cities that raised their police budget. Why there were more murders in 2020If it wasn't "crime-lenient Democrats" or the "defund the police" movement, what accounts for the increase in murders in 2020? There is no pat explanation. One possibility is that it was related to the pandemic. As Vox notes, criminologists have linked "isolation and idleness" — something there was a lot more of during the pandemic — to crime. Many programs designed to increase social cohesion and reduce violence, like sports leagues and community centers, were shut down. Another data point supporting the pandemic as a cause is that murders were in line with prior years until they began to spike in April, precisely when COVID took hold in the United States. Another likely factor: guns. Americans purchased 23 million guns in 2020, which was a record. It represented a 65% increase over the number of guns purchased in 2019. An increase in the number of guns has been linked to increased violence. That relationship is reflected in the weapons used in 2020's homicides. "About 77 percent of reported murders in 2020 were committed with a firearm, the highest share ever reported, up from 67 percent a decade ago," the New York Times reports. The reality is that there is a lot of uncertainty in national crime statistics. It is "the sum of a range of contradictory, extremely local crime trends." It is unlikely that there is one factor that explains the spike in murders in 2020. More policing doesn’t necessarily reduce violent crimeAnother common argument is that increasing the number of police officers would reduce violent crime. Cotton insinuates this in the article, mentioning that “even though the FBI gathered data from over 100 additional law-enforcement agencies than it did in 2019, it estimated 1,000 fewer police officers.” Would more police officers result in less violent crime? The evidence is mixed. Some evidence points to a correlation between more sworn officers and reduced crime rates. A 2019 study in the Journal of Public Economics looked at extra police officers hired in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It found that "each additional police officer prevented 4 violent crimes." Other data that takes a more comprehensive look at policing complicates this conclusion. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration used millions of dollars in federal funds to hire more police officers in hopes to lower violent crime rates. According to a report in USA Today, the nation had “242 police officers for every 100,000 residents” in 1997. In the two decades that followed the number of police officers per capita dropped significantly. By 2016, there were 217 police officers for every 100,000 residents, but the violent crime rate also dropped 37 percent during those 19 years. In other words, the shirking police force was accompanied by less violent crime. Violent crime is also only a fraction of police work. So much of the current force is involved in other activities. According to the New York Times, violent crimes account for about 4 percent of the calls that police handle regularly. Alternative methods to reduce violent crimeThe National Institute of Justice released a report that found that providing high-risk youth with extra mentoring and thinking skills can result in lower rates of violent crime. Control trials by The University of Chicago Crime Lab found that targeting youth who are at risk of reacting violently and providing lessons on how to de-escalate violent encounters reduced violent crime arrests by 30 to 50 percent. Another method to decrease crime rates is increasing gun control. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, nearly 20,000 Americans were killed by gun violence in 2020, which is more than any other year in “at least two decades.” According to a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, requiring universal background checks for all gun sales had homicide rates 15 percent lower than those without. Prohibiting the possession of firearms by people who have been convicted of a violent crime resulted in an 18 percent reduction in homicide rates. |
Older messages
Chamber of deceit
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
For months, the US Chamber of Commerce, which represents nearly every major company in the country, has aggressively supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF). The legislation, which
What's really happening with the mail
Monday, October 4, 2021
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." But what about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy? This month, DeJoy
Walmart calls for "strong climate policy now," backs campaign to kill strong climate policy
Thursday, September 30, 2021
In a new post on LinkedIn, Walmart's Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathleen McLaughlin, underscored the company's commitment to addressing climate change. But McLaughlin noted, correctly, that
UPDATES: The corporate campaign to tank reconciliation
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
The reconciliation bill, also known as the "Build Back Better" plan, has two main components. There is a wide-ranging collection of new policies, including: Paid family leave An expanded
Bad Apple
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Apple does not want the public to think of the company only as a profit-obsessed manufacturer of iPhones, AirPods, and MacBooks. Rather, Apple would like to be viewed as a responsible corporate citizen
You Might Also Like
☕ Doozy of a day
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
And the winner is...money... November 05, 2024 View Online | Sign Up | Shop Morning Brew Presented By Pacaso Good morning on this Election Day. Ever wonder why Americans vote on a random Tuesday in
LEVER TIME: Project 2025 Is Even More Radical Than You Think
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Project 2025, the conservative agenda for the next Trump administration, would allow him to govern through fear. If elected, former president Donald Trump has promised to implement mass deportations,
Mantic Monday: Judgment Day
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
... ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Amazon's nuclear datacenter dreams stall as watchdog rejects power deal [Tue Nov 5 2024]
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Hi The Register Subscriber | Log in The Register Daily Headlines 5 November 2024 denied Amazon's nuclear datacenter dreams stall as watchdog rejects power deal Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Is there life after CNN? Chris Cillizza hopes so
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
After being cast off from the “most trusted name in news,” the political analyst is trying to forge his own path. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Ask Chris Black: Which Coat Should I Get If I Don’t Want a Puffer?
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Plus: A rare 50-percent-off Dyson. The Strategist Every product is independently selected by editors. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission. November 04,
What A Day: Selzer bubbles
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
One day before the election, Kamala Harris is enjoying some good news. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Final Takeaways on Election Eve
Monday, November 4, 2024
Columns and commentary on news, politics, business, and technology from the Intelligencer team. Intelligencer 2024 election Election Fright A city on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Illustration:
An unexpectedly useful tool with “simply no negatives”
Monday, November 4, 2024
Think of it like a giant clothespin View in browser The Recommendation “My farm is held together by $1 spring clamps” The anvil clamp attached to a brown tarp with an illustrative orange frame. Doug
It's All Greek to Me
Monday, November 4, 2024
Election Prediction-ish, Refunds Without Returns ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏