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July 20, 2023
Latest CCJ accounting of crime trends shows most good news for first half of 2023
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) continues its important and timely work on modern crime trends through this latest report titled "Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2023 Update." This press release about the report provides an effective summary in its title: "Homicide, Other Violent Crimes Decline in U.S. Cities but Remain Above Pre-Pandemic Levels." Here is more from the press release:
Examining homicides in 30 cities that make homicide data readily available, the analysis found that the number of murders in the first half of 2023 fell by 9.4% compared to the first half of 2022 (a decrease of 202 homicides in those cities). Twenty of the study cities recorded a decrease in homicides during the first six months of the year, ranging from a 59% drop in Raleigh, NC, to a 2% drop in Nashville, TN. Ten cities experienced an increase in homicide, ranging from about 5% in Seattle to 133% in Lincoln, NE.
Motor vehicle thefts, which began to rise at the onset of the pandemic, continued an upward trend. Considered a “keystone crime” that facilitates the commission of homicide and other offenses, motor vehicle theft rose by 33.5% in the first half of the year, representing 23,974 more stolen vehicles in the 32 cities that reported data. Seven of those cities experienced an increase of 100% or more, led by Rochester, NY, (+355%) and Cincinnati (+162%). Overall, the number of vehicle thefts from January to June 2023 was 104.3% higher than during the same period in 2019. While it’s likely that much of the increase is the result of thefts of Kia and Hyundai models, the authors said, rates were rising before the cars became popular targets.
In other findings, gun assaults (-5.6%), robberies (-3.6%), nonresidential burglaries (-5%), larcenies (-4.1%), residential burglaries (-3.8%), and aggravated assaults (-2.5%) all fell in the first six months of this year compared to the same timeframe last year. Drug offenses rose by 1% and domestic violence by 0.3%.
The encouraging homicide data should not be a big surprise to followers of this blog, since I have been posting on homicide data pretty regularly based in part on data collected on this AH Datalytics webpage. (Indeed, as this writing, that page is showing a cumulative decline of nearly 12% for nearly 100 large US cuties.) But declines in many other violent crimes is also encouraging, though the motor vehicle theft stories is quite discouraging.
July 20, 2023 at 12:59 PM | Permalink
Comments
The issue, of course, which Doug never dives into, is preventable homicides, e.g., Regan Tokes, or even crime.
And then there's the issue of quality of life--a story from my own mom will suffice. My mom's an avid bowler and is pushing 80. (She's still works.) At a bowling alley, this subhuman scum tried to take her bowling ball bag. She said that it was hers, and said subhuman scum disputed it. (This is a hustle in NYC, btw. so as to avoid robbery charges--they just bully people.) My mom's name is in the bag. But what is she supposed to do? She says this, and the subhuman scum says that it's his wife's name. This scum is lucky I wasn't with her because charges or not, he is getting the beating of his miserable life. In Indiana, you can just shoot this scum, and guess what, in the vast majority of places in Indiana an elderly woman can enjoy a night of bowling without being robbed by vermin like this. People like this should be maxed out whenever possible. They are simply vermin that need to be incapacitated.
Criminals like this should be despised by society, not coddled. Any person that preys on a senior citizen like this is the scum of the earth. And if more people thought like me, then the society would be a lot safer.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 21, 2023 2:59:13 PM
Sorry to hear about the (attempted?) robbery of your mom, federalist. Was the offender arrested and now subject to prosecution?
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 22, 2023 8:09:00 AM
I think shooting someone over a bowling ball at an alley is excessive and one could face a charge of manslaughter or murder. I'm sorry your mom experienced that. What became of the accused? Was the dispute settled without intervention by law enforcement?
Posted by: Anon | Jul 22, 2023 9:56:13 PM
First of all, it is not excessive to beat the ever living crap out of some vermin who would act like this. In jurisdictions that understand reality, this is a robbery, as the threat of violence is obvious, and no, it is not unreasonable to use deadly force to stop a robbery. Period, full stop. What y'all don't understand is that this is a hustle, made possible by lenience towards criminals. The guy walked up to my mom and asserted that the bag was his. Thus, it just becomes a dispute. And what is she going to do--he could hit her and then claim that he was the victim. If she resisted at all, it could have been her life.
No one's doing anything about these vermin. Like I said, the subhuman scum is lucky that I wasn't there. He'd remember the beating that I would inflict for the rest of his miserable life.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 8:47:45 AM
And anon, it was her bowling ball bag--it had her %$^%$# name on it. "Dispute"?? You are a horrible human being.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 8:49:16 AM
federalist, did your mom or someone else call the police? Was there any effort to subject the offender to prosecution? I assume the bowling alley would have an interest in keeping robbers from hassling/hustling/bullying customers (especially loyal and vulnerable ones). Did any bowling alley employees or operators do anything to help?
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 24, 2023 9:17:07 AM
No one did anything. Police wouldn't do squat. Just one of those things in NYC. Way it goes. If she raised a stink at the time, she might have gotten her lights punched out.
When I was growing up in NYC, I was a paper boy, and I was roughed up and robbed. I didn't get to be a paper boy any longer. Cops didn't care.
Vermin.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 9:36:56 AM
https://www.city-journal.org/article/myth-of-the-starving-shoplifter
Funny this.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 10:03:00 AM
It sounds, federalist, as if part of the perceived problem here is the police (and the bowling alley); it also seems you have experienced this problem with the cops for decades since you were a boy (when Koch/Dinkins/Rudy were mayor?).
Interestingly, your experiences sound similar to what we sometimes hear from the BLM crowd, who will assert that the police cannot be trusted to be true protectors of the community and so should be defunded/abolished.
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 24, 2023 10:30:59 AM
The problem is the vermin. And 'rats who don't like people acting in self-defense.
Dinkins was mayor.
And what's the bowling alley supposed to do--protect someone, and it's certainly possible that you'll be charged with a crime.
Vermin and their 'rat enablers.
I often wonder where I'd be had things turned out a little differently. When I delivered papers, I carried a pipe for protection. I forgot it one day, and some adult, bigger and stronger than 14 year old me, approached me and made me give him one of my newspapers. Had I had that pipe, maybe his skull gets caved in when he starts walking away. Who knows? Vermin.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 11:29:17 AM
Can't the bowling alley call the police to report a miscreant bullying an elderly woman? How will the bowling alley (or your mom) be charged with a crime for making a report to the police? Do you surmise that cops regularly charge crime victims with crimes?
It's a huge problem, and a contributor to vigilantism, if people are unwilling to call police because they fear doing so will cause more harm than good. That's my understanding of why certain neighborhoods have high crime rates and low clearance rates and why it is so important to improve police/community relations. (Again, I sense hear about these kinds of policing problems more from folks on the left.)
That you still think (fondly?) about using a pipe to cave in a skull is a good reminder of the lasting harms/anger flowing from being the victim of crime and why lots of data suggest that the vast majority of violent criminals are also victims of crime. I am not an expert on policing, but your accounting here seems to be first and foremost a policing problem.
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 24, 2023 11:42:37 AM
Yes--but the cops are going to treat it like they treat squatters--it's just a dispute, not a robbery, because the vermin asserted that the bag was his. IN other words, it was pointless for my mom to bother with calling the police. This is a specific hustle that goes on in NYC, and it provides some context to the so-called Karen with the rent-a-bike.
As for my experience, I certainly believe that I have the right to protect property within my care (and for which I had to pay for). I wouldn't feel guilty about having done that if I had done such a thing--that I can tell you. But whatever my victimization--it doesn't mean that I would ever want to inflict harm on an innocent person. Any adult who robs a hard-working child like that should spend at least a decade in prison. And as between my paper and his skull, well, my paper is worth more to me, and I believe that everyone has the right to that view when it comes to people using force or the threat of force to take his or her property.
And what are the police really going to do? He'd never get charged. It's just how things roll in NYC--but not if I were there.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 1:12:03 PM
Funny, Doug, but it seems to be everyone else's fault when it comes to the robbery of my mom. The person who did it is vermin. And yes, I am fully aware of the historical usage of that term when it comes to people. Violent crime really should not be tolerated.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 1:14:11 PM
federalist, when did I ever say or even suggest it was anyone else's "fault"? I think of the police as a potential remedy/response to lawbreaking, but it seems that's not seen by you as viable in this context. That strikes me as a problem that ought to be remedied, though not somebody's fault. You are the one laying blame on "'rats," whereas I am just trying to understand why you and your mom and perhaps others feel as though police are useless (or even a threat) when it comes to responding to the attempted robbery that victimized your mother. I am also noting similarities between your story of police distrust/uselessness and what we hear discussed in some communities where crime is high and people seem to view resort to personal violence to be the only viable recourse.
I am sorry if you think I meant to fault anyone other than the wrong-doer. I am also sorry to hear of another situation in which the police are seemingly viewed as likely to do more harm than good.
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 24, 2023 3:53:07 PM
It would just be a waste of time to contact police. And let's be real--preventing a robbery isn't vigilantism, and it makes sense that people should have the ability to stop robbery with deadly force.
Posted by: federalist | Jul 24, 2023 6:36:37 PM
