Killings in the U.S. are dropping at a historic rate. Will anyone notice?

Rapidcreek@reddthat.com to News@lemmy.world – 314 points –
Killings in the U.S. are dropping at a historic rate. Will anyone notice?
latimes.com
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Nope. The media will continue to bring crime forward as a story and the perception of people will stay constant. If I had to guess, people will continue to say that crime is getting worse, or it's the worst it has ever been.

Crime statistics are literally just made up. Your local PD decided whats a crime and whats not, it could be the same exact thing but a crime one day and an incident the next. Fight at private high school? Not a crime. Fight at the low income area public high school? Crime.

A ton of crime does go unreported in general, so yeah. Numbers for crimes that are less severe than murder are probably way off.

Murder numbers would be fairly accurate, I would imagine. If those numbers are significantly off, there are some serious issues with reporting.

Yeah. We aren’t reporting any crime. Like when the cops are told to round up the homeless because it’s cutting into the city’s corrupt recycling program, so they arrest them for nothing just to get them off the street.

We are talking murders. People don’t not report them. And if someone goes missing, we don’t typically just let it go either.

Theft and assault? Those are going to be all over the map. But murders tend to be really accurate and sort of impervious to the “dark figure of crime.”

The missing part...yes they do. They absolutely do. There are a fuck ton of missing people who are most likely dead. The solve rate on missing persons is pretty damn low.

According to the NamUs database, there are 600,000 people declared missing every year. Alongside that statistic, there are 4,400 unidentified bodies discovered every year. That means only 0.7333% of people who go missing are found and unable to be identified.

https://www.wvnstv.com/digital-desk/how-many-missing-persons-are-found-in-the-u-s-yearly/

Stats show that the US has about a 6% murder rate per 100k. That’s about 250k murders per year, give or take.

And you’re talking about 4K bodies or 6k unsolved murders? Bro.

Over 95% of murders are reported to the police in the USA. So yeah, not sure what you’re trying to show with those numbers, but like I said originally, murders in 1st world nations aren’t prone to even near the same level misinterpretation as say theft or even sexual assault (as most go unreported).

Not even sure what compelled you to argue this.

PS: just from a logical argument point of view, what good is a numerator without a denominator?

You literally said if someone goes missing that people don't let it go...when in fact they absolutely do. And it's at an alarming rate...I don't know why you're annoyed at me with the numbers I have presented. Be pissed at the police.

Wtf are you talking about bro. 6k people out of a quarter million is nothing lol

So wait, 6k is nothing out of 250k, but 14k out of 350+ million is something?

Remember less that a year ago when Covid went from a pandemic to nonexistent?

That was because state governments stopped collecting the data, not because covid went away.

It was also because we have medicine now and Covid isn't swamping the ER with cases. Most people can just take the medicine at home.

Yes. Vaccinated peoples don't tend to need ventilators. As much.

But that's not why numbers stopped being collected. They stopped being collected because of political consequences for reelection for the lack of action elected officials took. So their response was to do less.

I am 2 jabs in and zero covid infections in. Because I'm not a petulant 5 year old, I still wear a mask, and I still social distance.

Can't wait for an incubator to infect me and put me on a ventilator.

The infection rates of COVID are still variable and it hasn't really gone away. The dangers still exist, for the most part. However, I personally think it is going the way of the flu and its almost there.

The biggest danger of COVID was that it was new, there were no vaccines and nobody had an immunity to it. It was a quick killer and nobody knew why, yet

TBH, it's good practice to keep wearing a mask if you want to limit yourself from getting sick. However, I do believe that the risk of death or needing a ventilator has gone down significantly. Post-infection treatments exist and the virus isn't much of a mystery anymore.

I have always tried to socially distance even before it was a thing. (Malls were always an unpleasant experience for me. I can't stand smelling other people as they walk past me...)

My point, is that the risk of being put on a ventilator is much lower even without masks or social distancing. You do you, by all means! It just seems that being as fearful of it is not necessary any more. (It's still a nasty little virus, don't get me wrong.)

IMO, covid has gone the way of leaded water.

Long covid is still a thing.

But some folks don't want help.

Cool, I can wear this mask for years.

They stopped collecting because it is too expensive. Some cities are monitoring virus titer through waste water. Hospitals, etc are not regularly testing or reporting. Source - know the state deputy directory for infectious disease prevention and control. Their department doubled during the pandemic and has now been cut in half. Epidemiologists are expensive, as are national guard personnel used for contact tracing.

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Really astonishing what kind of stories people come up with here...

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate

Look at "annual % change" for 2020/2021 and you should quickly realize that this "historic drop" is actually just a slow recline from the historic rise we just had.

And the framing of this article is just as astonishing. The whole "does anyone even notice" spiel! Amazing.

Honestly wtf even is this article. The data is basically saying that it is still increasing, just slower than last year.

No, the article is talking about 2022 and 2023 statistics, where there is in fact a drop. The link posted in this comment only shows data up to 2021.

Actually I don't know why they didn't just post the actual source used by the article itself which shows more recent data. Either way, the basic point stands that this "huge drop" is basically a reversion after a large increase in 2020-2021. Things are going "back to normal," so it's kind of stupid to pretend this is something we should all be looking at.

Ahh got it. Still a bad article lol

Reminds me of how the news media frames the deficit, like we're supposed to celebrate when the government puts 1.2 trillion on debt in a year rather than 1.4.

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And yet the top comment here is clearly someone who didn't even click the link lol

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Before we start to pat ourselves on the back: How does the number of murders in the U. S. compare to the rest of the world? This is really the only meaningful metric, otherwise it's like a chain smoker congratulating themselves from dropping from 3 packs a day to 2.


*"... there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." *

*edit*: The link I posted referred to a high murder rate for U.S. Virgin Islands (not contential U.S.).  So, it's not relevant to the conversation. Thanks for calling me out on it. 

Dropping from 3 packs a day to 2 is great progress, IMO? I'd congratulate someone on that.

Well, no one else is so hit me with it.

I’m lying. My mom said she was very proud of me she believes I can quit.

Hey I'm super glad to hear you're making a positive change. Quitting is tough, and it can be a long road. One day at a time. Congrats on your progress so far, I also believe you can do it!

That source seems to be claiming that the US's Virgin Islands is the 4th highest at 49 per cap. America overall averages closer to 7.

Thats US Virgin Islands at 4th with a rate of 49.3. The source you provided shows the US has a homicide rate of 4.96. Its a little unclear if the source is using murder and homicide interchangeably or not.

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Nope. Media will never allow that. Gotta keep us at each other's throats so we don't get our shit together and start holding politicians accountable.

A county ball? What is this word you speak?

The beginning of the drop in crime coincided with the "Broken Window" model of policing that new York and other large cities adopted. They like to claim credit.

But it also dropped in small towns that didn't have the same trendy police tactics.

The best explanation I've seen is that abortion became protected, so miserable women weren't forced to give birth in terrible conditions, and subsequently there weren't as many impoverished, abused children that turned to crime.

Guess we'll find out in a few years as the unwanted pregnancies start to tick up and economic mobility continues to stagnate.

There is also another theory about the dropoff being caused by reduction of lead in environments.

In Criminal Justice isolating variables is basically impossible in 'field' conditions. So many factors contribute to criminality that it's hard to connect any one policy change to an outcome firmly. Plus there's also the issue that different changes are being implemented simultaneously.

It's because homicides, as most other crimes, went through the roof during covid and are now returning to pre covid levels.

Crime did rise nationwide in 2020 and 2021. The disruption caused by a deadly pandemic, a record increase in the availability of guns, a pullback of policing in some cities and perhaps other factors combined to create a surge in homicides and other crimes.

That national tide has started to recede, but public perception has not kept pace.

The FBI’s annual report on the nation’s crime statistics showed a 6% decline in homicides in 2022. The drop exceeded what most crime experts expected, said Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst and consultant whose AH Datalytics’ site is a widely cited source of information.

So we've seen a return to normal lol. That normal being a relatively low and mostly leveled off decline due to lead being removed from our diets lol.

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ft_2022.10.31_violent-crime_02c.png

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/politics/uniform-crime-report-2020/index.html

https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend

In a sane world, cops would be boasting about what a great job they are doing. In this timeline, they know that scared people will vote for increases in police budgets.

But, they defunded^^ all the police, so if they admit the murder rate is down, they're afraid they'll get defunded^^ even further. Must continue to scream about high crime rates to get that sweet, sweet money.

^*^I know they didn't defund the police.

Not when the non-existent killings can be used to justify ramping up surveillance and control while justifying state violence.

🌈Freedom

To be fair, a good portion of the killings ARE the state violence. So yeah, it's good we notice.

More and more would-be murders are being downgraded to assaults because doctors keep getting better at saving victims' lives. America isn't getting less violent; our emergency medical care is simply getting better at dealing with the violence.

Edit: I stand corrected.

Violent crime is a fraction of what it was in the 70s and 80s. But that’s not really the issue here. Yes the media is using violence and fear to push page views, but the argument that’s being made is that solely because of this somehow it justifies firearm ownership and the cult of firearms that exists in this country. Every mass shooting someone somewhere will mention the historically low violent crime rates as if that wipes away the over 500 mass shootings so far this year and the 8 percent increase in mass shootings since 2020.

Sorry but no. Not the duck that people think it is. Not a good enough excuse. We still have a very real problem and if certain individuals can’t pull their head out of their ass and start working to find real solutions then those people are going to get voted the fuck out and adults will be put in their place who will get the job done. It’s that simple.

They're not. The article is just lying to you because they want to restore trust and faith in the system in people.

Half of all murders went unsolved in 2020. Don't forget that.

What does that have to do with less people being killed? Even if they went unsolved there are less overall.

Some stats show otherwise. There was a time that mass shootings were very rare. https://abcnews.go.com/US/mass-shootings-days-2023-database-shows/story?id=96609874

There was a time mass shootings were done almost entirely by white kids. The definition includes a lot of gang shootings now.

Do you understand how racist that sort of comment comes across as? You probably don't mean it like that, but you know there are white gangs too.

I'm not going to put an essay about historical racism or housing policies in a comment about gun violence. Might as well have called me out for saying mass shooters (in the colloquial sense) are white. I can't change reality - they statistically are white.

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Only if we can claim a scary reason for it. Government mind control? Aliens?

Hurry, throw a party before the more deadly AR-16 comes out next year

The AR-16 was released in the late 50's. (As a cheaper, easier to produce weapon than the AR-10)

That would be the AR looking gun made out of a converted Mac-10 lower so it’s legally full auto.

only if we're told about it. daily.

While getting a smog check, the proprietor told me that there was more crime than ever in our area. I was baffled. He looked to be my age. Had he forgotten the '90s? People will believe things they're told over what they see with their own eyes. Smh... and I'm finding a new smog check place next time