The 2020 Murder Spike

A Record Increase In Homicide Rates

The year 2020 was marked by an unprecedented, 25% nationwide surge in murders and also by a parallel and proportional surge in non-fatal shootings, despite continuing significant declines in most other forms of violent crime. 

Almost all of the increase in murders involved guns (as, of course, did the increase in non-fatal shootings that accompanied it more or less proportionately). At least a fifth of the surge can be statistically attributed to early pandemic related gun purchases, with the link being strongest in places that had lower levels of violent crime pre-pandemic. 

The murder rate is still roughly half of its peak in the early 1990s, however. 

The increases in murders generally track where murders were taking place before 2020, and contrary to the implied messages of many news reports, was not limited to, or disproportionately focused in, major cities.

Increased stress that built up during the lockdown and was then released when it ended, and the removal of social interactions that mitigate murders, appear to have played a part.

The evidence does not support the theory that the surge in murders was caused by police disengagement after the Black Lives Matter protests.

The story does not consider the possibility, but stressed health care systems resulting in a higher proportion of people who are shot dying during the pandemic could also have been a factor.

The detailed numbers aren't in, but the decline in other forms of violent crime accompanied by an increase in murders suggests that interpersonal acquaintance murders (e.g. such as those involved in domestic violence), as opposed to murders incident to other violent crimes, may have played a disproportionate part in the surge.

The Facts

After decades of a primarily downward trend in the overall number of people killed, crime experts say they expect 2020 will mark the biggest single-year national jump in homicides since national crime statistics began to be released in the 1960s. . . The rise in homicides likely translated into an additional 4,000 to 5,000 people killed across the country compared with the year before. . . . 

The homicide increase appears to be primarily driven by rising gun violence, with the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive reporting nearly 4,000 additional gun killings nationwide in 2020 compared with the year before.

But what’s happening with homicides is not part of some broader “crime wave.” In fact, many crimes, from larcenies to robberies to rape, dropped during the pandemic, and continued to fall during the first few months of 2021. “Crime” is not surging. Even the broader category of “violent crime” only increased about 3% last year, according to the preliminary FBI data from a large subset of cities. It’s homicide in particular that has increased, even as other crimes fell.

Early data also suggests the homicide increase isn’t happening at random, but that much of the additional violence is clustered in disadvantaged neighborhoods of color that were already struggling with higher rates of gun violence before the pandemic. . . . “Everything we know suggests that the increases in homicide are occurring in the very neighborhoods where homicide has been traditionally concentrated,” he said. “What we’re not seeing is a spreading-out of homicide.” . . .

A preprint study from researchers at the University of California, Davis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggested that a spike in gun purchases during the early months of the pandemic was associated with a nearly 8% increase in gun violence from March through May, or 776 additional fatal and nonfatal shooting injuries nationwide. The researchers found that states that had lower levels of violent crime pre-Covid saw a stronger connection between additional gun purchases and more gun violence.

Community groups say that the pandemic forced them to shutter prevention programs, and created huge challenges for the work of violence interrupters, who rely on close relationships and in-person interventions with people at risk of shooting or being shot. . . .

Jeff Asher, a crime analyst who writes extensively about homicide trends, examined 60 cities and found no correlation between the number of Black Lives Matter protests, and the size of a city’s homicide increase. . . . [A]ny policing-focused explanation for the homicide increase need[s] to explain why the change would have only affected serious and deadly violence.

“Most crime is down, including most felony, serious crime,” he said. “If the de-policing argument is correct, why did it only affect an uptick in violence and not other street crime?” . . .

Chicago, a city of 2.7 million people, saw 300 more people killed in 2020 than in 2019, and more than 1,000 additional nonfatal shootings. . . .

New York, a city of 8 million people, saw an increase of about 150 homicides and 700 nonfatal shootings.

Smaller cities saw smaller total increases: Oakland and Minneapolis, which both have populations of about 400,000 people, each saw homicides increase by about 30 additional people killed last year, and between 100 and 270 additional nonfatal shootings. . . .

[E]ven after an estimated 25% single-year increase in homicides, Americans overall are much less likely to be killed today than they were in the 1990s, and the homicide rate across big cities is still close to half what it was a quarter century ago.

New York City saw more than 2,200 killings in a single year in 1990, compared with 468 last year, according to city data. In the bigger picture, that’s a nearly 80% decrease.

Los Angeles saw more than 1,000 homicides a year in the early 1990s, compared with fewer than 350 last year. . . .

The Bay Area city saw gun homicide rates drop by nearly 70% over the past decade. In 2020 the city saw a modest increase in homicides with 22 people killed that year compared to 17 the year before.

From The Guardian.