A new report shows that Black men have had the highest homicide victim rate since 1960.
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The study also shows how homicides were on a long-term decline from the early 1990s until 2015, when they increased again. Then came the 30% spike in homicides from 2019 to 2020, which was the largest single-year increase on record.
Over the last several years, crime researchers and academics have explored what drove that increase and point to several factors, such as the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder. They also believe an increase in gun sales and a lack of proactive and effective policing were contributing factors.
Homicides are trending downward, though still higher than in 2019. Lopez said this is the nature of violence, though he believes there have been more coordinated efforts to help the communities and areas that struggle with violence along with a better understanding of the data.
“Homicide rates are dropping, and that’s very good news. That said, we still need aggressive action to save even more lives,” Thomas Abt, a senior fellow with the Council on Criminal Justice said in a statement. “Despite the decline, the U.S. remains a bloody outlier among wealthy nations concerning homicide and other serious violent crime.”
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