As Predicted, Violent Crime Increased in 2015

Violent crime increased for all categories during the first six months of 2015 per the FBI. What follows is part editorial and part news.

Editorial:

The fact that violent crime would increase in 2015 was easily foreseen. This is what we wrote on this site after the FBI released their full report on crime in the United States for 2014,

…..there are reports in some cities in 2015 that homicides and violent crime are increasing. Aggravated assault and rapes increased in 2014. The FBI states that the decrease in violent crime went from 4.6 percent in the first six months of 2014 to 1.2 percent for all of 2014. It’s leading some to suggest that violent crime is increasing in larger cities and possibly throughout the country.

What is troubling is that so many academics and advocates strongly objected to any discussion about increasing crime. They made it clear that anyone suggesting that violent crime was growing was either wrong or greatly misinformed.

How anyone could not recognize the vast increases in homicides and violence in cities and metropolitan areas throughout the country is beyond our understanding. As we come to grips with lessening our reliance on incarceration (a discussion we support), many apparently felt that any debate regarding increasing violence would derail efforts to implement alternatives to incarceration. 

There are also many academics and advocates who insisted that suggested slowdowns by law enforcement (the Ferguson or Baltimore effects) wasn’t real and that crime would continue to decline in America.

It’s a shame that so many would be in harsh denial and embrace politics before being honest with the American people.

If we can’t or won’t be honest with facts that have real implications for our safety, then we should not wonder as to why Americans have become so cynical about those who are supposed to lead or guide us.

The bottom line is that violent and property crime are still at record lows for the country and, generally speaking, have been decreasing for the last two decades except for recent years (2011 and 2012) and now for the first six months of 2015.

News:

Statistics released in the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report revealed overall declines in the number of property crimes reported and overall increases in the number of violent crimes reported for the first six months of 2015 when compared with figures for the first six months of 2014.

The report is based on information from 12,879 law enforcement agencies that submitted three to six months of comparable data to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for the first six months of 2014 and 2015.

Violent Crime

• All of the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape (revised definition), rape (legacy definition), aggravated assault, and robbery—showed increases when data from the first six months of 2015 were compared with data from the first six months of 2014. The number of rapes (legacy definition) increased 9.6 percent, the number of murders increased 6.2 percent, aggravated assaults increased 2.3 percent, the number of rapes (revised definition) rose 1.1 percent, and robbery offenses were up 0.3 percent.
• Violent crime decreased 3.3 percent in non-metropolitan counties but rose slightly, 0.1 percent, in metropolitan counties.
• Violent crime increased in all but one of the nation’s four regions. These crimes were down 3.2 percent in the Northeast but increased 5.6 percent in the West, followed by rises of 1.6 percent in the South and 1.4 percent in the Midwest.

Property Crime

• In the property crime category, burglary offenses dropped 9.8 percent, and larceny-theft offenses decreased 3.2 percent in the first six months of 2015 compared with the same months from 2014. Only motor vehicle theft showed an increase (1.0 percent).
• Property crime decreased 12.3 percent in non-metropolitan counties and 6.0 percent in metropolitan counties.
• The West was the only region to show an increase (2.4 percent) in property crime. Reports of these offenses declined 8.0 percent in the Northeast, 7.0 percent in the Midwest, and 6.4 percent in the South.

Source and discussions regarding the definitions of rape (revised and legacy) are available at https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-preliminary-semiannual-crime-statistics-for-2015.