(Newswire.net — September 3, 2015) — The New York Times obtained a list reporting US cities crime and violence data. Although the data varies from city to city, it shows a sharp increase in murder rate and violence in US in 2015, the New York Times reported.
The list showed the worst situation is in Milwaukee, with 76 percent increase of violence, followed by St Louis, Missouri with a 60 percent violence increase. The list also shows Baltimore, Maryland with an increase in violence of 56 percent. The same report shows Houston having nearly a 50 percent increase in murder rate, Los Angeles 26 percent and New York having a 26 percent murder rate increase.
Officially, no one really knows what factor or group of factors contributed to the increases in violence, which was first identified this summer. However, some senior police officers told the NY Times that heightened scrutiny of use of force by officers may have caused them to withdraw from everyday policing and emboldened criminals.
According to others, increase in gun ownership has caused more gang-related killings and more young people settling disputes with guns.
Some voices support “the Ferguson effect” theory that police officers are withdrawing from engaging the suspects fearing they could be charged. Others agree that “the Ferguson effect” could be associated with increase in violence in some cities, however, it does not explain the nation wide increase across all states, they argued.
Instead of police scrutiny, experts are pointing to social factors such as the size of the youth population, the amount of socioeconomic disadvantage and social disorganization in a given city. The growing unemployment and poverty issue also could be a major contributor to the increase of violence on the streets of US cities.
Violent crime, however, is not going up everywhere. According to the data, Philadelphia has seen a 41% decrease in murders since 2007.
According to Dr. James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, it is still too early to draw any conclusions because short-term spikes are statistically unreliable, especially if they come after a long-term decline.
“It’s a ridiculous silly game of focusing too much on too little, trying to ascribe it to something like the impact of [events in] Ferguson,” said Mr Fox. “None of these statistics are reliable.”
“I don’t want to minimize the tragedy of so many dying… but the sky is not falling,” said Dr. Fox.