(Associated Press) Homicides in the U.S. in 2020 increased nearly 30% over the previous year, the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records, according to figures released Monday by the agency.
Homicides and non-negligent manslaughters climbed an estimated 29.4% to 21,570, an increase of 4,901 over 2019, FBI data showed. It is the highest estimated total since the early 1990s, when homicides stayed above 23,000 a year as drug wars played out in many places in the U.S.
Violent crimes in 2020 went up by a more moderate 5.6% over the previous year while property crimes continued a nearly two-decade decline, falling 7.8%. Robbery and rape dropped 9.3% and 12% respectively.
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said he considered 2020 a “unique situation” and not part of any sort of long-term trend. He attributed the dramatic uptick to a confluence of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, conflicts over politics and race and people just generally having too much free time.
“I don’t want to minimize what’s happened. I just don’t want people to believe that the sky is falling and that this is a permanent” trend, Fox added. Even with the huge homicide rise, he noted, the number is still far lower than what the country endured during the crack cocaine epidemic 30 years ago.
While the drops in other crime categories are positive news, homicides were the stunning trend — one that has continued this year.
(Steve Sailer, Unz Review) In the FBI’s expanded homicide data, the black share of known murder offenders increased to a new record of 56.52%.
But, the big news is that while the number of known murder offenders (who can therefore be tabulated racially) increased by 17.3 percent, the number of Unknown murder offenders grew 36.0%. Traditionally, murders in black neighborhoods tend to have the lowest clearance rate, what with snitches getting stitches.
So the black share of murder offenders likely went up even more.
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With the new 2020 Census, a somewhat sizable delta has opened up between the percentage of people who say they are racially black and nothing else (12.4%, including black Hispanics) versus people who say they are either all black or also black and something else (14.2%).
If you use the more expansive latter figure for the at least partially racially black population of 14.2%, then the ratio of black (and blackish) known murder offenders to nonblack known murder offenders in 2020 was 8.4 to 1. (If you use use the more restrictive black-only figure of 12.4%, you get a black to non-black ratio of 9.8 to 1.)
Incredibly, even the the lower (at least part-black) ratio of 8.4 to 1 is a little higher than the the per capita male to female known murder offender ratio of 7.5 to 1.
