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There's a really interesting result buried in this. "about half of US counties saw increases in suicide and violence" The separation of perceived and actual v

There's a really interesting result buried in this. "about half of US counties saw increases in suicide and violence" The separation of perceived and actual violent crime rates is a pretty infamous thing. Violent crime has been declining for decades, but at least since ~2000 perceived rates have failed to track that result. People toss around lots of theories, from "the media scares us" to "bigots are scared" to "perception can only go so low". This implies that we might be missing a better answer: people give national answers using local assumptions. If your county and all of the ones nearby have steadily rising rates of assault and homicide, it looks an awful lot like violence is on the rise (and for you, it is). This is especially true since you'll hear about every murder in your town, but only a few from NYC regardless of how many happen there (or don't happen). So violent crime rates have dropped steadily, largely because they're power-law effects and the deadliest regions have gotten much safer. But there are a lot of people looking around at rising violence where they and their families live, and that's getting buried by the data from a handful of cities.

maxerickson 10y ago
In many counties the rate of violence is still low enough that it will be difficult to measure accurately, never mind trying to reason about it anecdotally. (a typical year around here includes 0 murders and about 20 aggravated assaults, less than 1/1000 individuals)
stuckagain 10y ago
Media scare tactics around violence focus on urban areas, but the counties with high and increasing violence are the rural ones, especially the severely depopulated and very isolated counties. Of course the flip side is, nobody lives there. The ratios are high but the absolute numbers are not. I like to use this site to explore this data, although it cannot produce deep links: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterface.jsp https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterf...
anigbrowl 10y ago
You're correct, but people in rural areas often dismiss the data as lies (egged on by some sectors of the media) rather than asking for better data. So it's an article of faith among rural and semi-rural conservatives that all government data are lies and that the inner cities are some sort of urban-warfare crime zone which is being covered up in the mainstream media. It suits certain political actors to promote this version of events.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
>> the deadliest regions have gotten much safer. Not so sure I agree with that. - St. Louis, MO - Detroit, MI - New Orleans, LA - Baltimore, MD - Chicago, IL All have had incredibly high murder rates since 2002. That's over a decade of violent crime that hasn't slowed down at all and continues to remain steady to this day.
- dionidium 10y ago
  I'm from St. Louis, so I happen to be familiar with those numbers. Here are the homicide rates in St. Louis in the early 90s (per 100k people): 1991 65.0 1992 57.4 1993 69.0 1994 63.5 1995 54.9 And here's 2002-2014: 2002 31.4 2003 21.8 2004 33.7 2005 37.9 2006 37.2 2007 39.6 2008 46.9 2009 40.3 2010 45.1 2011 35.3 2012 35.5 2014 49.9 Homicides here started falling in the late 1990s and remained (relatively) low throughout the 2000s. The rate did jump in 2014 and has remained higher since, but it's still lower than it was in the early 90s. Which, I think, is to say that your narrative isn't correct, at least regarding St. Louis. It's much messier than that (and mostly good news (relatively)).
  - grecy 10y ago
    Wow. In the mean time, Toronto has a homicide rate of around 2.0 (in 2012 [1]), making it almost 18x lower than St. Louis. Genuine question, why do you continue to live there? Why wouldn't you move somewhere safer? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Toronto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Toronto
    - jdminhbg 10y ago
      Violent crime is almost entirely concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, and the people living there don't generally have the means/ability to move.
    - dionidium 10y ago
      There are (at least) three things to understand about those numbers: 1. The City of St. Louis occupies a very small portion of what any reasonable person would call "St. Louis." And those numbers include only the City portion. The rest of the area is much safer. St. Louis County, which surrounds St. Louis on three sides and contains three times as many people (over 1 million), had 15 homicides in 2014 for a homicide rate of 1.5 (lower than Toronto) [0]. Most people living in the St. Louis area are living in very safe places. 2. Not all cities occupy such a small portion of their region. Toronto, to keep your example, is 243.33 sq mi. St. Louis is 66 sq mi. If St. Louis's borders were extended to match Toronto's reach, then it would include a whole bunch of the safe areas in St. Louis County, which would considerably soften the numbers. (Note that nothing on the ground would actually change.) This is why reasonable regional comparisons should be done at the level of the MSA. Arbitrary borders are, well, arbitrary and produce misleading comparisons. 3. Even when looking only at the City of St. Louis, you have to understand that many neighborhoods have 1 or 2 or 0 homicides each year. [1] Most of the violence is concentrated on the city's Northside and in the Southeast. Extreme violence is not a part of the everyday lived experience for most citizens. The way outsiders talk about crime in places like St. Louis very sloppy. (Bonus #4: Crime and safety and law and order aren't the only metric by which to choose where to live.) [0] This number is almost certainly too low, because of how crime is reported in the County. I got that number here: http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-st-louis-county http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-... Some other sources suggest it may be around twice that for the entire County, meaning the rate is likely closer to 3.0 per 100,000 (which is still considerably lower than in the City). [1] https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides-2005-2012/ https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides...

maxerickson 10y ago

In many counties the rate of violence is still low enough that it will be difficult to measure accurately, never mind trying to reason about it anecdotally. (a typical year around here includes 0 murders and about 20 aggravated assaults, less than 1/1000 individuals)

stuckagain 10y ago

Media scare tactics around violence focus on urban areas, but the counties with high and increasing violence are the rural ones, especially the severely depopulated and very isolated counties. Of course the flip side is, nobody lives there. The ratios are high but the absolute numbers are not. I like to use this site to explore this data, although it cannot produce deep links: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterface.jsp https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterf...

anigbrowl 10y ago

You're correct, but people in rural areas often dismiss the data as lies (egged on by some sectors of the media) rather than asking for better data. So it's an article of faith among rural and semi-rural conservatives that all government data are lies and that the inner cities are some sort of urban-warfare crime zone which is being covered up in the mainstream media. It suits certain political actors to promote this version of events.

at-fates-hands 10y ago

>> the deadliest regions have gotten much safer. Not so sure I agree with that. - St. Louis, MO - Detroit, MI - New Orleans, LA - Baltimore, MD - Chicago, IL All have had incredibly high murder rates since 2002. That's over a decade of violent crime that hasn't slowed down at all and continues to remain steady to this day.

dionidium 10y ago
I'm from St. Louis, so I happen to be familiar with those numbers. Here are the homicide rates in St. Louis in the early 90s (per 100k people): 1991 65.0 1992 57.4 1993 69.0 1994 63.5 1995 54.9 And here's 2002-2014: 2002 31.4 2003 21.8 2004 33.7 2005 37.9 2006 37.2 2007 39.6 2008 46.9 2009 40.3 2010 45.1 2011 35.3 2012 35.5 2014 49.9 Homicides here started falling in the late 1990s and remained (relatively) low throughout the 2000s. The rate did jump in 2014 and has remained higher since, but it's still lower than it was in the early 90s. Which, I think, is to say that your narrative isn't correct, at least regarding St. Louis. It's much messier than that (and mostly good news (relatively)).
- grecy 10y ago
  Wow. In the mean time, Toronto has a homicide rate of around 2.0 (in 2012 [1]), making it almost 18x lower than St. Louis. Genuine question, why do you continue to live there? Why wouldn't you move somewhere safer? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Toronto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Toronto
  - jdminhbg 10y ago
    Violent crime is almost entirely concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, and the people living there don't generally have the means/ability to move.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    There are (at least) three things to understand about those numbers: 1. The City of St. Louis occupies a very small portion of what any reasonable person would call "St. Louis." And those numbers include only the City portion. The rest of the area is much safer. St. Louis County, which surrounds St. Louis on three sides and contains three times as many people (over 1 million), had 15 homicides in 2014 for a homicide rate of 1.5 (lower than Toronto) [0]. Most people living in the St. Louis area are living in very safe places. 2. Not all cities occupy such a small portion of their region. Toronto, to keep your example, is 243.33 sq mi. St. Louis is 66 sq mi. If St. Louis's borders were extended to match Toronto's reach, then it would include a whole bunch of the safe areas in St. Louis County, which would considerably soften the numbers. (Note that nothing on the ground would actually change.) This is why reasonable regional comparisons should be done at the level of the MSA. Arbitrary borders are, well, arbitrary and produce misleading comparisons. 3. Even when looking only at the City of St. Louis, you have to understand that many neighborhoods have 1 or 2 or 0 homicides each year. [1] Most of the violence is concentrated on the city's Northside and in the Southeast. Extreme violence is not a part of the everyday lived experience for most citizens. The way outsiders talk about crime in places like St. Louis very sloppy. (Bonus #4: Crime and safety and law and order aren't the only metric by which to choose where to live.) [0] This number is almost certainly too low, because of how crime is reported in the County. I got that number here: http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-st-louis-county http://www.kmov.com/story/29948033/homicides-on-the-rise-in-... Some other sources suggest it may be around twice that for the entire County, meaning the rate is likely closer to 3.0 per 100,000 (which is still considerably lower than in the City). [1] https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides-2005-2012/ https://nextstl.com/2013/01/understanding-st-louis-homicides...