The US murder rate soared by almost 30% last year, the most in over a century. I wrote about this in the October 26 issue of Forecasts & Trends. Well now, even more disturbing news on the exploding murder rate has come out of the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) recently. Fortunately, not all the latest news is bad. I’ll update you below.
Before I get to the latest news, let me briefly recap the highlights of the September reports released by the CDC and the FBI on the exploding murder rate in 2020. For purposes of this discussion, I’ll refer to the latest CDC report statistics since the FBI report findings were almost identical.
The US murder rate soared by almost 30% last year, with a record 21,570 murders in 2020, up from 16,669 in 2019, according to the CDC and the FBI. Law enforcement officials and demographers are still not exactly sure what led to the historic spike in the murder rate last year. Unfortunately, the surge has continued so far in 2021.
Meanwhile, the level of violent crime also went up significantly last year in the US. The CDC estimates violent crime increased 5.6% in 2020 with 1.3 million violent crimes reported. Again, we don’t know the reasons why for sure. We do know that Americans bought a record number of firearms in 2020, nearly 23 million in all, a 65% increase over 2019, according to background check data.
Now here’s the latest new information which came out of the CDC earlier this month. First, the CDC reported that the 30% increase in the murder rate in 2020 was the largest annual percentage increase since at least 1905 – so the largest annual spike in at least 116 years.
Next, the CDC found that firearms were used in 77% of all murders last year, as opposed to other types of weapons and methods. Rifles and shotguns, not surprisingly, accounted for far fewer murders. The CDC said a sizable number of murders in 2020 (and prior years) involved an unknown type of firearm.
Next, the FBI said that in a typical year, about 60% of murders are solved or at least referred for prosecution. This is called the “clearance rate.” So far this year, the clearance rate for 2020 murders is only 54%. This lower rate is due in part to the record large number of murders last year and the fact that law enforcement numbers are down in many cities this year.
Next, even though murders hit a new record last year, the odds of being murdered are still 42% lower than the suicide rate (13.5 deaths per 100,000 people) and 71% below the mortality rate for drug overdose (27.1 deaths per 100,000 people), as of the third quarter of 2020, the CDC data shows.
Next, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about violent crime. In a July 2021 Pew survey, 61% of Americans said violent crime is a “very big problem” in the country today, up from just 41% a year ago. Respondents on this question ranked violent crime a bigger problem than: the federal budget deficit (50%), climate change (47%), racism (45%), economic inequality (44%) and illegal immigration (43%).
I mentioned above there was some good news in the latest CDC findings recently released, at least in my opinion, and here it is. Over the last year, Americans have become more and more supportive of increasing local police funding in their communities again.
In the latest Pew survey conducted in September, 47% of US adults said they favored an increase in funding for police in their area, up from 31% last June. Support for reducing local police funding declined from 25% last year to only 15% now. That is great news in my opinion!
Thanks to growing pressure from the “defund the police” crowd over the last couple of years, many cities have laid off officers and encouraged others to take early retirement. As a result, police protection went down and crime rates went up, significantly in many cases. Even some of the liberals who pushed the defund movement have changed their tune and now support refunding the police.
Austin is a good example. As you may know, we live in a suburb outside of Austin, and it is a very liberal city. In 2020, the far-left city council voted to defund one-third of the police annual budget of apprx. $450 billion. Many other large cities did the same, but Austin reportedly had the largest budget cut ($150 million) in percentage terms in the nation.
And you can guess what happened. Police were unable to respond to nearly all 911 calls, only the most serious emergencies. The murder and violent crime rates skyrocketed! The criminal element is everywhere now, along with a huge increase in homeless campers. Formerly one of the top tourist destinations in Texas, Austin does not look like the same city anymore. And tourists say they don’t feel safe in downtown and along the popular Ladybird Lake hike and bike trail.
Now our city council is scrambling to refund the police and rebuild our law enforcement capability. But guess what? Many of the cops who were laid off or encouraged to take early retirement are not coming back. Austin faces a long and difficult road back to rebuilding the police and becoming the city it once was.
This story is playing out across the country. The liberals just never learn!
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