Homicide Rates in 2020 Surged to a 24-Year High. It’s Another Sign of a Failing Regime

by | Nov 19, 2021 | Headline News | 12 comments

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    This article was originally published by Ryan McMaken at The Mises Institute. 

    By mid-2020, it was already becoming clear that the United States was experiencing a spike in crime. Indeed, by midyear, numerous media outlets were already reporting remarkably large increases in homicide in a number of cities. It was clear that if then-current trends continued, homicide rates in the United States would reach levels not seen in over a decade.

    With full-year data for 2020 now available on the FBI’s Crime in the United States report, we can see that those predictions were right. According to the report, the homicide rate in the United States rose to 6.5 per 100,000 in 2020, which is the highest rate reported since 1997—a twenty-four-year high.

    Moreover, the increase from 2019 to 2020 was one of the largest increases the US has experienced in ninety years. For similar increases in a similarly short period of time, we must go back to the 1960s—or even the 1940s. In other words, this is not normal. If the current trend continues, the US could find itself back experiencing homicide growth not experienced since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

    It remains to be seen, however, if this is a temporary spike or part of a longer trend. If it is a spike, we can expect homicide rates to fall back to around 5 per 100,000, as had become a common experience over the past decade. If it is just a spike, then we can blame the surge in homicide on short-term events such as the covid lockdowns or the Black Lives Matter riots. If the surge is part of a larger trend, however, we’ll need to look to more broad and permanent causes for a satisfactory explanation.

    But finding the causes of larger trends in homicide rates is no simple matter, and ideological groups tend to use movements in homicide rates as “proof” of the correctness of their preferred political hobby horses.

    There is compelling evidence, however, that trends in crime are driven largely by how the public views the legitimacy of the regime and its institutions. In short, the theory rests on the idea that crime increases when a jurisdiction’s residents do not respect government institutions and do not believe that government institutions can provide safety or administer justice in a fairly reliable way.

    If the United States is indeed at the beginning of an upward trend in homicide, it might be more evidence of what many already suspect is happening: trust in American political institutions is falling, and consequently, fear of private crime and social disorder is rising.

    Homicides: Some Historical Perspective

    In order to get some perspective on these trends, however, we have to look at historical movements in homicide rates.

    There is significant disagreement over the measurement of homicide rates in the early twentieth century, and data is especially spotty before the FBI established the Uniform Crime Report system in 1930. There is much more consensus, however, that homicide rates were high by today’s standards during the early 1930s. These rates began to decline rapidly after 1934, and this began a long downward trend in homicide that lasted until the late 1950s. This trend bottomed out at 4 per 100,000 in 1957. By 1965, homicide rates had begun a rapid ascent, climbing from 4.6 per 100,000 in 1963 and peaking at 9.8 per 100,000 in 1980. Homicide rates remained at elevated levels throughout the 1980s, but went into steep decline after 1993, reaching 4.4 per 100,000—a fifty-one-year low—in 2014.

    Since 2014, however, the homicide rate has increased by more than 45 percent. Yet, 2020’s rate of 6.5 per 100,00 is not especially high by twentieth-century standards, and we’re not yet returning to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s when violent crime was high year after year.

    On the other hand, the magnitude of 2020’s increase is sizable and alarming. Measured as a percentage increase, 2020’s increase is simply the largest ever recorded.

    Homicides in terms of raw totals increased by a whopping 29 percent from 2019 to 2020. No other one-year percentage change in ninety years has been as large. Certainly, in some years the total number of homicides has increased by very large amounts. For example, during the early 1970s, the US experienced some immense increases in terms of totals.

    Yet the only comparable percentage increases can be found over two-year periods in the past. For example, from 1944 to 1946, homicides increased rapidly as young men flooded America’s cities and towns following the end of the Second World War. Homicides had been suppressed throughout the war by the fact most of the nation’s young men—the people most likely to commit a violent crime—had been shipped off to war. Homicides increased 34 percent, from 6,553 in 1944 to 8,784 in 1946. That was a very temporary situation, however, and the “trend” ended in 1946. By contrast, from 1966 to 1968, total homicides increased by 26 percent, rising from 11,606 in 1966 to 14,686 in 1968. This was only the beginning of an upward and severe trend in homicide that would last for years.

    What Causes These Changes?

    There are many different theories that purport to explain trends in homicides. Many people naturally gravitate toward the ones that confirm their existing world views. For example, some groups can be counted on to blame racial discrimination or a lack of government welfare as the causes of crime. Some say its economic inequality. Others might turn to racial theories to claim that certain ethnic groups are always behind surging homicide. And of course, a favorite alleged cause of changing homicide rates is the presence of firearms.

    Like everyone else, I have my own preferred theory and it’s this: trends in homicide are driven largely by the public’s views of the legitimacy of the state’s institutions. When the public regards state institutions as ineffective in maintaining peace, order, and some semblance of justice, violence becomes more widespread.

    For example, as Stephen Mihm explains, sociologist Roger Gould in his 2003 book Collision of Wills

    determined that virtually every spike in the homicide rate in 19th-century France correlated with periods of political instability. Moreover, he found that murder rates also went up in parts of France distant from eruptions of actual revolutionary upheaval; simply living in the shadow of a political breakdown was sufficient to jack up the murder rate.

    This theory has been developed in detail by Gary LaFree (in Losing Legitimacy [1998]) and by crime historian Randolph Roth. But perhaps the largest study within this theoretical framework is Roth’s five hundred–page empirical analysis American Homicide.

    Roth contends that any serious analysis must take into account trends in homicide measures over numerous decades in a wide variety of times and places. With this data, Roth concludes it is reasonable to accept LaFree’s contention that the variables that correlate most clearly with homicide are “the proportion of adults who say they trust their government to do the right thing and the proportion who believe that most public officials are honest.”

    Roth then adds the following variables as central to understanding movements in homicide rates:

    1. The belief that government is stable and that its legal and judicial institutions are unbiased and will redress wrongs and protect lives and property.
    2. A feeling of trust in government and the officials who run it, and a belief in their legitimacy.
    3. Patriotism, empathy, and fellow feeling arising from racial, religious, or political solidarity.
    4. The belief that the social hierarchy is legitimate, that one’s position in society is or can be satisfactory and that one can command the respect of others without resorting to violence.

    If these conditions do not exist, Roth concludes, then homicide rates will climb as residents view others in their community as potential threats. Furthermore, community members will feel they must engage in vigilante justice to make up for a lack of fair or reliable action on the part of police and other state actors.

    Criminologists and crime historians, of course, debate how well the historical data matches the theory. But Roth contends this relationship goes back centuries in American history, even to the seventeenth century. Where revolution, rebellion, and social unrest exist, we will likely see rising homicide rates.

    So are we in this situation right now?

    Certainly, the theory is plausible given the current state of affairs. On the one hand are groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters. These groups can engage in outright violence at times and at other times simply sow general unrest and a lack of confidence in the regime. At the same time, we find that a growing number of Americans are purchasing firearms at unusually high levels. Millions of Americans believe that election outcomes are manipulated. Others believe the police are either malicious or at least incompetent. In 2020, police officers were closing down businesses that refused to “lockdown.” Police were arresting mothers for daring to let their children play in city parks. We have every reason to believe these acts will only sow additional suspicion and resentment of government institutions. Many believe government vaccine mandates are both morally and legally illegitimate.

    This is not a society that views government institutions with growing trust and reverence. Rather, this is a society that views government institutions as a source of injustice and disorder.

    Moreover, the disorder has spread well beyond the nation’s ghettos. It might be comforting to think that homicides are only growing in certain crime-ridden Chicago districts. But this is not the case. Even the nation’s small cities in areas far from the nation’s traditional crime centers are seeing large increases. For example, in South Dakota—a state historically with relatively very low homicide rates—homicides increased by nearly 150 percent from 2019 to 2020. Similar trends were seen in other states, such as Iowa, where homicides have generally been very low in recent decades.

    Offenders also come from a variety of backgrounds. While homicides committed by known black offenders increased by 26 percent from 2019 to 2020, homicides by known white offenders notably increased by 23 percent. That is, there were 4,728 known homicides committed by whites in 2019. That rose to 5,844 in 2020.

    So, if more Americans of many different backgrounds are buying guns because they fear crime, their fear is not based in imaginary trends. From the federal level on down to the local police department and courthouse, government officials appear either unwilling or unable to deal with the realities of crime and social disorder. The public appears to have taken notice.

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      12 Comments

      1. Obviously a problem with insufficient gun control.

      2. Gee it wouldn’t be because they released thousands of murderers from prison over the covid scam. Or let in thousands of criminal gang members on the mexican border. Or a certain race of people breed like roaches (5-15 kids) and live in the projects and their kids turn into thug/ gang scumbags. Wouldn’t be because our just-us system is a huge failure. Hmmm, I wonder what the reason could be? 😮

      3. Kyle is an American hero and an outstanding role model for today’s youth. As this story shows, the context in which he acted was a massive increase in murder and violence during the pandemic lockdown. On top of that, widespread rioting across the country by BLM/Antifa was causing billions of dollars in property damage and dozens of deaths. Kyle was trying to stop rioters from blowing up a gas station; an explosion that would have caused significant damage.

        In the end, the responsibility for things getting out of hand rests with Donald Trump, who failed to activate the national guard, military strike teams, the CIA/FBI, Navy Seals etc. to go after BLM rioters and put a stop to the violence. Trump allowed the unrest to escalate purely because it suited his political agenda and his mistaken belief it would guarantee his re-election.

        It came down to young men in local communities to stand up and defend them. That should never have been necessary if the authorities, who are paid an extraordinary amount of money to protect Americans (trillions and trillions), had done their job. This would never have happened in China.

        • Dude things have been way out of hand for many decades.
          I was 14 years old and living in Detroit when all hell broke loose in the summer of 1967.
          Google the “Detroit riots of 1967” if you don’t know what happened in the summer of 67’.
          Think the protests and riots of the past few years have been violent?
          They pale in comparison to the protests and riots of the 60’s and 70’s.

      4. Although there is other factors involved, One MUST look at the fact of who is in charge in the areas of the highest crime rates and it is ALWAYS liberal/democrats. That in itself shows what must be done and that is stop them from EVER holding any offices of power. Sounds great, but CAN it be done, I doubt it until the sheeple finally see how bad these people are and who knows IF they ever will see it. They have been severely brainwashed and their IQ’s lowered by the areas they live in.

        • Great observations. I’ve seen otherwise smart people that live in our big cities refuse to understand that some politicians don’t have our society’s best interests at heart.

      5. I read a review of eF bee eye statistics of murder rates in the US from a review about 3 years old. If six cities and their urban areas (Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and I believe Detroit and one city in NJ) were statistically eliminated from the total number of murders in the US, the overall murder rate in the US would be lower than Belgium. That being the case, the logical thing to do is to determine the common denominators for these six cities, and for the rest of the country, and see what the different factors are.
        Unfortunately, there are two statistics we are not allowed to discuss as important factors. One is more than 91% of murders of blacks are by other blacks, the other is black males age 15 to 35 comprise about 3.5 % of the US population, yet commit more than 50% of all murders. I’m not making a commentary, merely citing statistics.
        Also, with some exceptions, those areas with the most strict gun control laws generally have the highest crime rates, and those areas with the least strict gun control laws have the lowest crime rates. How do the gun control fanatics square that?
        It’s weird to think that Dems. want you to believe that taking away people’s guns, for example say in Alabama (or anywhere else), will fix the problem, for example in Chicago.

      6. Some people believe that rhetoric is violence and violence is rhetoric.

        I was in the household of one person, who led police on a chase, and they jumped up and down on his rib cage. When out of jail, he could not comprehend the concept of private property, no matter how politely or simply he was treated.

        I figure, everyone’s family has at least one.

        You share community resources with people who lack objectivity, so are unequally yoked besides them, or you are under their petty tyranny.

        All opinions are not equally valid, yet equally protected and equally defended. I can no longer call myself pure libertarian, although it has been a simple go-to answer, over the years.

      7. Go armed everywhere you go,encounters/events, of the worst kind almost always happen when you least expect them. Everybody has the right to defend themselves from harm,it’s your responsibility to protect yourself. If you live where guns are restricted or people are not allowed to carry,do it anyway,be discreet about it,make sure it is properly concealed. It’s your life at stake,is your life worth defending? We are living in extraordinary times of uncertainty and danger. Don’t rely on law enforcment to protect you,if you do you’ll Probably be sadly disappointed.

      8. Look for a spike in “Mutual Combat”

        Outside of Chitcago known as the purge.

      9. The rise in crime is just one ingredient going into the soup of Bring America down so the ONE WORLD ORDER can implement their global plan. Obama put it out into the Open and Biden is going full bore.
        This BS is coming near a breaking point – Think fall 2022.
        As we all know this socialist want a HOT civil War – Think Marshal Law!! – What do you think will happen – One thing will be certain China will invade Taiwan and we will do ZERO.
        Game over the socialist and China win!

        • I read this…. After a couple of years, when vaccinated people begin to dye in large numbers globally, people both pro vax and anti kill shot will unite against the governments. A collapse in each country and the chaos will ensue. Then, a global government will emerge promising peace and security. I do t know but this does seem quite feasible. Prepping for Mad Max world for a few years seems daunting. But, this theory or assertion rather was too logical fir me to dismiss it.

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