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The violent crime rate has not gone up. Murder in particular has gone up, but not broader measures of violent crime: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/202

The violent crime rate has not gone up. Murder in particular has gone up, but not broader measures of violent crime: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/31/violent-crime-is-a-key-midterm-voting-issue-but-what-does-the-data-say/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/31/violent-cri...

rayiner 4y ago
Murder rates are an important indicator because virtually no murders go unreported, while reporting of other violent crimes can vary. For example, as your source notes, NYC doesn’t even report violent crimes to the FBI: > In the latest FBI study, around four-in-ten police departments – including large ones such as the New York Police Department – did not submit data, so the FBI estimated data for those areas The homicide rate rose 30% during 2020, taking us back to roughly mid-late 1990s levels: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-kno....
- treis 4y ago
  Their cite includes the national crime victimization survey which surveys a 100-200 thousand people and asks if they've been a victim of a crime. Theoretically that's independent of anything else and should accurately reflect the true crime rate. But these days I'm not sure how you can get an accurate sample. That said, I think this somewhat misses the point. Large numbers of cities saw violent disturbances over the last couple years. Anecdotally, I've noticed an increase in street racing and those sorts of general jackassery. Technically I'm not the victim of a violent crime but there definitely seems to be more of an edge to life these days. Understandable that people feel less safe and violent crime technically not going up isn't much solace.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    The national clime victimization survey excludes homicides. And even if you’re not the one killed, homicides have ripple impacts across the community. There was a teenager working as a cashier at the lunch place in my office. Really nice kid—I saw him several times a week. He was shot and killed in one of those random shootings that’s all too common in DC, and which became a lot more common since 2020.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It never hit 1990s levels (your own source shows this in its charts), and it's falling again. It shouldn't be that surprising that COVID and the ensuing disruptions caused some fluctuations. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/briefing/crime-data-us-mass-shootings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/briefing/crime-data-us-ma...
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Look at the chart at the end of Item 5. It shows the homicide rate climbing to 7.8 per 100,000, which is well above the level in 2000.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      2000 is at 6, 2001 spikes to 7ish, and not many people consider either year "the 90s". The worst of 2020's disruptions doesn't come close to historical highs, even in the 90s, and it's already fading.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        2020 was at 7.8. As you note 2000 is as at 6 (2001 was 9/11 so that doesn’t really count for our purposes here). So that means 2020 was back at levels last seem before 2000, which is what I said. Specifically, it’s around the level in 1996, which was 7.4: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-... The FBI’s 2021 statistics show a further increase from 2020. For 2022, New York City is down a bit from 2021, but you’re still talking about wiping out a decade of progress in lowering homicide rates: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/historical-crime-data/seven-major-felony-offenses-2000-2021.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_p...
- listless 4y ago
  For their 2021 (latest data), the FBI (which Pew references for the article) did not include data from California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. Unless I misunderstand that, we have no idea how much crime actually went up or down by those omissions alone. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/08/the-problem-with-the-fbi-s-missing-crime-data https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/08/the-problem-wi...
happytiger 4y ago
I’m not trying to be confrontational, but I do need to say something on this comment and hopes for some good discussion. How much of that is due to actual drops in crime levels and how much of it is due to decriminalization of offenses and a the resultant drop in crimes reported? Both the Uniform Crime Reporting Program from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey have methodological have problems. There isn’t even a consensus between when about what constitutes criminal activity. And in some jurisdictions, only incarceration worthy crimes are considered ‘crime,’ where as in others fined infractions like speeding in a vehicle count. To say nothing of the tendency of crime data to suddenly regress towards the mean, which has been a problem for researchers. I am wary to accept short term crime statistics, because it’s so politicized. There’s a great discussion here, though it’s a tad dated: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/when-crime-data-becomes-politicized https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/when-crime...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > how much of it is due to decriminalization of offenses and a the resultant drop in crimes reported? Which violent crimes have been decriminalized?
  - happytiger 4y ago
    I mean isn’t not prosecuting properly the same effect? If that’s the case I’d say sexual assault is often viewed as efffectively decriminalized. I don’t know what I’d like to know on these subjects, to be perfectly honest. I’m still learning and didn’t wade into HN today to spread my perfect knowledge on the subject. Hope there is still room for that. Here’s what got me thinking about the whole subject in the first place: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=nlj https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=18... https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation-of-rape/ https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation...
- lsy 4y ago
  Another angle: how much non-reporting is due to mistrust of police, and how much is due to police explicitly telling crime victims not to report or that a report will be useless, because they are trying to politically undermine a progressive DA? But I think there need to be actual studies on reporting rates and reasons for non-reporting before too much pure speculation is applied to dismiss these statistics. People have been making arguments close to the above for years if not decades, at some point one would assume the reporting rate would stabilize.

rayiner 4y ago

Murder rates are an important indicator because virtually no murders go unreported, while reporting of other violent crimes can vary. For example, as your source notes, NYC doesn’t even report violent crimes to the FBI: > In the latest FBI study, around four-in-ten police departments – including large ones such as the New York Police Department – did not submit data, so the FBI estimated data for those areas The homicide rate rose 30% during 2020, taking us back to roughly mid-late 1990s levels: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-kno....

treis 4y ago
Their cite includes the national crime victimization survey which surveys a 100-200 thousand people and asks if they've been a victim of a crime. Theoretically that's independent of anything else and should accurately reflect the true crime rate. But these days I'm not sure how you can get an accurate sample. That said, I think this somewhat misses the point. Large numbers of cities saw violent disturbances over the last couple years. Anecdotally, I've noticed an increase in street racing and those sorts of general jackassery. Technically I'm not the victim of a violent crime but there definitely seems to be more of an edge to life these days. Understandable that people feel less safe and violent crime technically not going up isn't much solace.
- rayiner 4y ago
  The national clime victimization survey excludes homicides. And even if you’re not the one killed, homicides have ripple impacts across the community. There was a teenager working as a cashier at the lunch place in my office. Really nice kid—I saw him several times a week. He was shot and killed in one of those random shootings that’s all too common in DC, and which became a lot more common since 2020.
ceejayoz 4y ago
It never hit 1990s levels (your own source shows this in its charts), and it's falling again. It shouldn't be that surprising that COVID and the ensuing disruptions caused some fluctuations. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/briefing/crime-data-us-mass-shootings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/briefing/crime-data-us-ma...
- rayiner 4y ago
  Look at the chart at the end of Item 5. It shows the homicide rate climbing to 7.8 per 100,000, which is well above the level in 2000.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    2000 is at 6, 2001 spikes to 7ish, and not many people consider either year "the 90s". The worst of 2020's disruptions doesn't come close to historical highs, even in the 90s, and it's already fading.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      2020 was at 7.8. As you note 2000 is as at 6 (2001 was 9/11 so that doesn’t really count for our purposes here). So that means 2020 was back at levels last seem before 2000, which is what I said. Specifically, it’s around the level in 1996, which was 7.4: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-... The FBI’s 2021 statistics show a further increase from 2020. For 2022, New York City is down a bit from 2021, but you’re still talking about wiping out a decade of progress in lowering homicide rates: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/historical-crime-data/seven-major-felony-offenses-2000-2021.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_p...
listless 4y ago
For their 2021 (latest data), the FBI (which Pew references for the article) did not include data from California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. Unless I misunderstand that, we have no idea how much crime actually went up or down by those omissions alone. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/08/the-problem-with-the-fbi-s-missing-crime-data https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/08/the-problem-wi...

happytiger 4y ago

I’m not trying to be confrontational, but I do need to say something on this comment and hopes for some good discussion. How much of that is due to actual drops in crime levels and how much of it is due to decriminalization of offenses and a the resultant drop in crimes reported? Both the Uniform Crime Reporting Program from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey have methodological have problems. There isn’t even a consensus between when about what constitutes criminal activity. And in some jurisdictions, only incarceration worthy crimes are considered ‘crime,’ where as in others fined infractions like speeding in a vehicle count. To say nothing of the tendency of crime data to suddenly regress towards the mean, which has been a problem for researchers. I am wary to accept short term crime statistics, because it’s so politicized. There’s a great discussion here, though it’s a tad dated: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/when-crime-data-becomes-politicized https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/when-crime...

ceejayoz 4y ago
> how much of it is due to decriminalization of offenses and a the resultant drop in crimes reported? Which violent crimes have been decriminalized?
- happytiger 4y ago
  I mean isn’t not prosecuting properly the same effect? If that’s the case I’d say sexual assault is often viewed as efffectively decriminalized. I don’t know what I’d like to know on these subjects, to be perfectly honest. I’m still learning and didn’t wade into HN today to spread my perfect knowledge on the subject. Hope there is still room for that. Here’s what got me thinking about the whole subject in the first place: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=nlj https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=18... https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation-of-rape/ https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation...
lsy 4y ago
Another angle: how much non-reporting is due to mistrust of police, and how much is due to police explicitly telling crime victims not to report or that a report will be useless, because they are trying to politically undermine a progressive DA? But I think there need to be actual studies on reporting rates and reasons for non-reporting before too much pure speculation is applied to dismiss these statistics. People have been making arguments close to the above for years if not decades, at some point one would assume the reporting rate would stabilize.