Report: No simple answers for crime wave
25th July 2022 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
While the United States grappled with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country also faced a rise in violent crime and some types of property crime in communities of all types in 2020.
A new study from the Brennan Center of Justice at the New York University School of Law warns readers not to accept easy answers as to what caused that crime wave.
“This is a really complicated issue. If anyone tells you they have the one answer for why crime rose so much, you should be very suspicious of that explanation,” said Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Brennan Center and a co-author (with Noah Kim) of the report “Myths and Realities: Understanding Recent Trends in Violent Crime.”
According to statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, violent crime rose by 5.2 percent in 2020. However, murder rose 28.9 percent. Aggravated assault rose by 11.7 percent.
The CDC’s report, “Vital Signs: Changes in Firearm Homicide and Suicide Rates,” states that the firearm homicide rate rose by 35 percent in 2020, reaching its highest level since 1994. The same report noted that over 75 percent of murders in 2020 were committed with a firearm. Gun sales also hit a record high in 2020. A 2020 collaboration between the websites The Trace and FiveThirtyEight stated 87,000 guns were used to commit a crime within a year of their purchase in 2020.
“America’s relationship with guns is uniquely destructive,” Grawert said.
The murder increases occurred in all types of locales. Murders jumped over 30 percent in America’s largest cities and 20 percent in places the FBI labeled “suburban” (fewer than 50,000 residents and part of a Metropolitan Statistical Area). Murders also rose by comparable levels in rural areas.
Violence remained concentrated in younger demographics. Approximately 40 percent of people arrested for murder in 2020 were between the ages of 20-29. About 30 percent of murder victims were in their 20s and another 30 percent over the age of 40.
Collecting quality data for 2021 will be challenging. The FBI is transitioning to a new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) after using the Uniform Crime Report Summary Reporting System. According to a May 2022 article by Jeff Asher in The Atlantic titled “The FBI’s Next Set of Crime Data Is Going to Be a Big Mess,” NIBRS enables agencies to gather data on multiple crimes within the same incident (e.g. a robbery leading to a murder).
Asher noted in the article that NIBRS on paper is “clearly superior” to the old method of data collection. However, he also notes that over 7,000 of America’s almost 19,000 law-enforcement agencies are not yet reporting data to the system. NIBRS is voluntary, so the FBI cannot force agencies to participate. The transition from the old system to NIBRS can take up two years to complete.
“The result is that national crime estimates in the next few years will carry more uncertainty than ever before,” wrote Asher. “Even worse, some states will have no crime estimates for 2021 at all, and perhaps even beyond.”
So what drove the rise in violent crime? As Grawert noted, there is no simple answer. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a recession, which affected low-wage and minority workers the most. Gig economy and service industry workers faced extended unemployment.
Shutdowns related to the pandemic could also have played a role. Closures of community spaces like schools, summer programs, and public pools and libraries left young people with a lack of options for safe spaces to spend time.
Nonprofits that work to reduce violence were also hit hard by the pandemic. One example is in Philadelphia, where the city froze $1 million in previously allotted small grants to 52 anti-violence organizations. The Brennan Center’s report also noted that even in cities where programs kept their funding, social distancing made the work more difficult if not impossible.
Grawert and Kim wrote in their report: “Many were forced to turn to virtual meetings, which experts who spoke with the authors said may not support the type of direct communication on which their strategies depend. Virtual meetings also require a stable internet connection, which not all participants may have.”
But while Grawert acknowledged that municipal leaders’ failure to identify what programs were truly essential to their communities during the pandemic may have played a role in the rise of violent crime, he said he did not want to overstate the case.
“It would be wrong to dismiss the role of the pandemic, but it would also be wrong to blame it all on the pandemic,” Grawert said.
The Brennan Center’s report disagreed with the notion that the rise in crime was fueled by policies of progressive DAs around the country. The report cited the work of Jeff Asher in The New York Times. Asher referred to data indicating that murders increased in 2020 by approximately 29 percent in cities with a Democratic mayor and 26 percent in cities led by a Republican.
New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea complained that bail reform led to a surge in violent crime in 2020. But according to a July 2020 article from The New York Post entitled, “NYPD’s own stats debunk claims of bail reform leading to spike in gun violence,” only one person released under the statewide bail reforms between January and July 2020 was later charged with a shooting.
Grawert also added that many of these reforms are too new to adequately judge yet, especially considering the once-in-a-generation crisis the country endured in recent years. When asked how much time would be needed to judge these reforms, Grawert said it was impossible to make a definitive statement on the matter but he hoped better data would be available in the next 1-5 years.
Grawert also said it is important for cities to provide adequate social services to supplement these policing and prosecutorial reforms. Having social workers to help people get off drugs, receive mental health care, and make court appointments are all helpful strategies.
This article originally published in the July 25, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
