Photo by kat wilcox
The news is filled with thieves bum-rushing stores and stealing mass amounts of goods. But while robbery may seem to be on the upswing, homicides in large U.S. cities are down.
Homicides in major cities such as New York and Chicago have dropped more than 5 percent in 2022 compared to the same time a year earlier, according to the research firm AH Datalytics. Mass shootings are also down this year compared to the same period in 2021. And while this trend is continuing into 2023, murders remain higher than they were in 2019, The New York Times reported.
There are some cities, however, have seen an increase or just a slight drop in homicides and gun violence.
Rising crime in Baltimore has made the city one of the deadliest in the country. In 2022, data from Open Baltimore showed that the city recorded 177 homicides in the first six months of the year, making that period the most crime-ridden in over a decade. According to Baltimore police data, the year 2022 ended with more homicides. There were 332 people killed in the city in 2022; but the number was slightly down from the 334 fatal shootings in Baltimore in 2021.
Other kinds of crime, however, might have increased in 2022, and into the beginning of this year.
Let’s look at Chicago, for example. Homicides are down in the Windy City. Yet the city has seen an increase in rape and robberies are on the rise, according to a survey of large U.S. law enforcement agencieslooking at the time period of January 1 to June 30, 2022. Chicago experienced 10 percent less homicides through the first six months of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.
This is part of national trend, revealed the Major Cities Chiefs Associations, which shows that homicides are decreasing in most major U.S. cities while other types of violent crimes are on the rise.
From Jan. 1 to June 30, 2022, homicides dropped 2.4 percent in major cities compared with the same period a year before, Axios reported. Still, overall crime jumped 4.2 percent.
From 2019 to 2021, murders and shootings increased in the U.S., while many other types of crime remained the same or decreased. The year 2022 saw the trends reversed. So, while the most violent crimes are dropping, crime overall is on the upswing.
Other types of crime, especially property offenses, are spiking. Thefts and robberies in major cities rose by around 20 percent in the first half of 2022, after falling or leveling out the previous two years, the Council on Criminal Justice found.
Photo by kat wilcox: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crime-scene-do-not-cross-signage-923681/
