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Editor’s Note-For an update on this article, see Crime in America.
Highlights
Based on an increase in gun-related homicides, it’s probable that there will be an increase in homicides for 2017 and concurrently, it’s possible that there will be an increase in overall violent crime.
A multi-year overview of crime in the US is available at Crime in America.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University.
FBI-Crimes Reported To The Police
This site correctly predicted an increase in violent crime for 2015 and 2016 based on crimes reported to law enforcement as reported by the FBI.
New numbers for all of calander year 2017 will be released from the FBI soon, and based upon the data below on gun deaths, we predict an increase in homicides for the country.
Overall violent crime historically coincides with homicides thus we would not be surprised if those crimes increased as well.
Gun murders accounted for nearly 70.5% of total homicides, thus if gun homicides are going up, it’s likely that overall murders will increase as well.
Media reports from a variety of cities (not all) in the US indicate continued growth in homicides and violent crime.
There are, however, complications with our prediction. The FBI announced a reduction in violent crime of 0.8 percent for crime in the US for the first half of 2017. Murder increased 1.5 percent, robberies decreased 2.2 percent and aggravated assaults were flat (0.1 percent decrease).
But it won’t be the first time where violent crime decreased during the first half of the year but changed substantially for the full year (i.e., 2014).
National Crime Survey (NCS)-Counting Reported and Unreported Crime
There are two primary sources for counting crimes in the US, data from the FBI (reported crimes) and the National Crime Survey (all crimes based on a sample).
Our claim that crime is increasing is tempered by data from the National Crime Survey stating that violent crime rates remain flat in 2015 (last definitive report) while property crime rates decreased.
But the news from the National Crime Survey is moderated by the fact that violent and property crime decreased both in 2014 and 3013, thus violent crime rates being flat indicates the possibility of future increases.
The National Crime Survey issued new numbers for 2016 (released in December of 2017) indicating increases in rates and totals of violent and property crime “but” because of changes to the counties sampled and overall methodology, the Bureau of Justice Statistics stated that, “there was no measurable difference in rates of violent or property crime from 2015 to 2016,” Crime in America.
Predicting Violent Crime is Tough
Yes, predicting the future of violent crime is tough with the preliminary report from the FBI stating that violent crime decreased for the first half of 2017, and with a redesign in methodology from the National Crime Survey for 2016.
Yes, it’s also true that over the last twenty years, violent crime is greatly reduced per the FBI and the National Crime Survey, Crime in America.
To make things even more confusing, per Gallup, within two years, we have both the highest and lowest measures of household crime but an insignificant drop in personal crime, Crime in America.
Fear of Crime
We note that Americans’ level of concern about crime and violence is at its highest point in 15 years, per a Gallup survey. Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults say they personally worry “a great deal” about crime and violence, an increase of 14 percentage points since 2014. Gallup said the figure is the highest the firm has measured since March 2001, Crime in America.
In March of 2018, Gallup reports that 78 percent of Americans worry about crime and violence a great deal or a fair amount, the same as health care, the number one issue.
Conclusion
Crime numbers for the last reporting periods from the FBI, the National Crime Survey, and Gallup provide a mixed bag of data that confuses those following crime trends.
But if one follows the gun-related homicide data below, the trend lines seem to be up, which means a probable increase for homicides in 2017, and concurrently, a possible increase in overall violent crime.
Related Reports
Center for Disease Control Chart
Gun Deaths Up 12 Percent in 2017
Gun deaths are up more than 12 percent in the first 200 days of 2017 compared with last year, reports the Washington Post. Firearm injuries are up nearly 8 percent. The number of children under the age of 12 shot by a gun has increased by 16 percent, while instances of defensive gun use are up nearly 30 percent. Data from the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks shootings, show that the carnage has only gotten worse. In the first 200 days of 2014, the Archive’s team of researchers tallied 6,206 gun deaths, not counting suicides. Three years later that figure has jumped by well over one-third, to 8,539 fatalities.
CDC Data Reported By CNN
Shooting homicides are on the rise, though other common methods of murder remain flat, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most common method of killing another person from 2010 through 2016 was by using a gun, Thursday’s CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicate.
Knives or other tools that cut or pierced were the second-most-common homicide method during that period, while the third most common was suffocation.
Overall, gun murders accounted for nearly 70.5% of total homicides — more than two-thirds — for the period.
All three methods of homicide remained stable from 2010 through 2014. However, for the two-year period after that, gun homicides increased 31%, from 11,008 shooting deaths in 2014 to 14,415 in 2016.
The two other top methods remained stable between 2014 and 2016.
As a result, the number of gun homicides was about 8 times higher than those involving knives (1,781) and about 30 times higher than those involving suffocation (502) in 2016.
Part of the sharp upward curve beginning in 2014 may be because of a surge of violence in a small number of cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis and Kansas City, said Daniel Webster, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Each of these cities has experienced “fairly notable and large increases in homicides over the period in question,” while “other places have been more flat,” said Webster, who was not involved in the CDC report.
Sources
Contacts
Contact us at leonardsipes@gmail.com.
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