Who suffers the most from crime wave?

[Valin]

The Washington Examiner

Abby Kassal & GianCarlo Canaparo

April 13, 2022

Violent crime, like the price of gas, is rising. Not everyone is experiencing this crime wave in the same way. For some, it’s a distant issue experienced by other people somewhere else. For others, it’s a daily life-threatening concern.

We parsed the FBI’s crime data from 2011 to 2020 (the most recent data available) and found that African Americans bear an increasingly large share of the harm from crime. African American offenders, meanwhile, are committing an increasingly large share of violent crimes.

For other racial groups, the numbers are either decreasing (in the case of both white victims and offenders), increasing by much smaller amounts, or holding constant.

Crime by the numbers.

(Snip)

The number of police officers killed feloniously is rising too. In 2021, 73 were murdered , a 20-year record for the amount of officers killed in the line of duty.

The increase in crime, though drastic, has not been steady over the course of the past decade. America witnessed much larger spikes in violent crime in 2020, especially homicide, than any of the previous 10 years.

Who Suffers?

Although the National Incident-Based Reporting System is not complete, it provides useful insights into who suffers from and who commits crime because it tracks demographic data about both sets of people.

We utilized the FBI’s crime data to compare victim statistics to determine which groups have been most impacted by the rise in violent crime. Factoring out the cases in which the race of the victim was unknown, we calculated who has borne the brunt of the crime wave.

For this analysis, violent crime includes assault, homicide, and sex offenses. We found that the increase in these crimes has fallen hardest on black people.

From 2011 to 2020 the percentage of violent crime victims who were black increased by 3.2% to reach a peak of 32.7% in 2020. By contrast, the percentage of total victims who were white steadily declined from 69.1% to 64.7% over the same period.

(Snip)

Who’s Doing It?

With race-essentialist rhetoric at a fever pitch bemoaning the omnipresence of white supremacy , some might be tempted to conclude that the relative decrease in white victims and the relative increase in black victims is attributable to a spike in racial hatred. That hypothesis would suggest that the relative number of white offenders is increasing, and the relative number of black offenders is remaining constant or decreasing.

In fact, the opposite is true. Again, after factoring out the cases in which the race of the perpetrator was unknown, the relative share of offenders by racial groups followed a similar trend to the share of victims.

From 2011 to 2020, the percentage of total violent offenders who were white fell 3.4% to 58%. With respect to homicide specifically, the percentage fell by 0.8% to 43.1%. By contrast, over the same period, the percentage of total violent offenders who were black rose 2.4% to 39.4%. And with respect to homicide, the percentage rose 0.3% to 54.7%.

(Snip)

[Valin]

Real Clear Investigations (Crooks Have Cars! WOW!!!)

LA’s Crime Surge Migrates to Wealthy, Whiter Zip Codes of Boldface Names

James Varney, RealClearInvestigations
April 13, 2022

On March 22, in the broad daylight of a typically gorgeous day in Beverly Hills, thieves in hoodies and sunglasses took a sledgehammer to the plate glass window of Peter Sedghi’s boutique and furiously rummaged through the shards. In less than 90 seconds, the robbers stole more than $3 million worth of jewels. Two days later, in response to a wave of high-end robberies, the Los Angeles Police Department announced there would be no arrests. Instead, it cautioned Hollywood residents not to wear high-quality jewelry in public. 

“Beverly Hills is one of the most affluent, safest neighborhoods in the world and now everyone is scared,” Sedghi said. “All of my clients – no one wears anything.”

Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles, as well as in many other major cities, since the start of the pandemic and last summer’s protests against police violence resulted in the slashing of many law enforcement budgets. News stories document rising fear across LA and crime has become the major issue in both the upcoming mayor’s election and a possible recall of the district attorney. It may not be surprising that issues of race and class are driving this concern, though they have a new twist. 

Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes, according to an analysis conducted for RealClearInvestigations by criminologist John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center.

(Snip)