Saturday, May 14, 2016

Inner City Homicide Rates Jump

In an effort to bring more peace to the inner city neighborhoods that supported him President Obama decided to go to war against white police officers. Don’t you know, the cause of black-on-black homicide is white police officers. If you don’t believe me, ask President Obama’s leading advisor on the problem: Rev. Al Sharpton.

And when it isn’t white police officers, the culprit must be… the NRA. The Obama administration is happy to blame black-on-black homicide on guns. Don’t you know, the country is awash in guns that discharge all by themselves… like the new cars that drive themselves.

How has it all been working out? For the most part, not very well. True enough, in some cities, like New York, the murder rate has declined. In most major cities, the rate has spiked.

The New York Times reports the bad news:

Experts cannot agree on what to call a recent rise in homicides, much less its cause, but new data on Friday that showed a sharp spike in homicide rates in more than 20 cities rekindled debate over whether it was time for alarm.

The data showed particularly significant increases in homicides in six cities in the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year — Chicago, Dallas, Jacksonville, Fla., Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Memphis. But almost as many cities reported a notable decline in recent months.

New York saw a 25 percent drop, while Las Vegas’s homicide total nearly doubled.

Law enforcement officials struggled to explain the numbers and differed over their significance.

The heroin epidemic, a resurgence in gang violence and economic factors in some cities were all offered as explanations, but the most contentious theory came from an agency that usually does not worry much about local crime: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Economic factors… who would have guessed? After more than seven years of the Obama-led economic recovery, America’s inner cities are undergoing a crime wave because of economic hardship. If you thought that Barack Obama’s policies were going to lift the inner cities out of policies, you were seriously mistaken.

And then there is the so-called Ferguson effect: white police officers have been far less aggressive in policing minority neighborhoods. After all, if they do the wrong thing they will lose their jobs and perhaps even be thrown in jail. Better to do nothing.

But, let’s add one other reason for the problem. The Obama administration, in its approach to black-on-black homicide never aims its contempt at the people who have been committing the crimes. Beings as they are black they get a pass. They are not held accountable. Someone else is always to blame.

Given the general amnesty and blame shifting that the Obama administration has thrown at black criminals, why is anyone surprised to see that the homicide rate has risen at an alarming rate.

1 comment:

Ares Olympus said...

Stuart: But, let’s add one other reason for the problem. The Obama administration, in its approach to black-on-black homicide never aims its contempt at the people who have been committing the crimes. Beings as they are black they get a pass. They are not held accountable. Someone else is always to blame.

I agree, partisan blame games get tedious. But I have no evidence the courts are being soft on black crimes.

I wonder what's happening in my city?
http://www.startribune.com/as-year-s-end-violent-crime-up-in-minneapolis-for-fifth-straight-year/363508991/
----
Even as property crimes have receded, violent crime has risen nearly 7 percent compared with this time last year, with some categories of these crimes reaching five-year highs, according to department statistics released last week. Still, police officials note, the rates of violent crime are a far cry from the levels seen in the early-1990s, when rampant gang- and drug-related violence earned the city the grim nickname “Murderapolis.”

In 2015, Minneapolis’ ­violent crime rate was 1,019 crimes per 100,000 residents, about 14 percent below its 15-year average of 1,187. That figure is still higher than that of some other larger cities like San Diego and Philadelphia.
...
Assistant Police Chief Kris Arneson: “I don’t know if we have absolutely an explanation for it, because if people want to commit crimes they do, but when we look at the numbers I think our biggest concern is aggravated assaults,” Arneson said. She attributed part of the increase in such assaults to a rise in domestic violence ­incidents, which have led to five killings so far this year.

The rising levels of crimes committed with guns have put continuing pressure on Police Chief JaneĆ© Harteau, who has been building a reputation as a leader on the gun violence issue. Last year, at a regional crime summit in Milwaukee, Harteau told the audience of police chiefs, politicians and academics that when it came to fighting gun violence, Minneapolis was “about 12 months behind” Chicago and Milwaukee.

Officials caution against reading too much into the rising crime rates — a product of underlying social conditions like poverty, racial discrimination and chronic unemployment — saying that sharp variations in the numbers may be misleading when considering long-term crime trends, which show that current levels are still hovering around historic lows in Minneapolis and other large U.S. cities. As a recent study by the New York City-based Brennan Center for Justice pointed out: “Although monthly changes in the murder rate tend to attract notice from the press, the reality is that short-term fluctuations in the murder rate are common and not very predictive of long-term trends.”

Deputy Police Chief Bruce Folkens, who heads the department’s Investigations Bureau, said the rise in violence is due, at least in part, to the proliferation of guns among young men, whom police say are increasingly likely to pull a trigger to ­settle old neighborhood scores or present-day beefs on social media. Officials said more than three-quarters of the city’s homicides in 2015 were caused by guns.
----

Strangely the lowest number of Minneapolis homicides was 19 in 2009, after the economic crisis, and 49 in 2015 is the highest during Obama's term in office, while the 15 year peak was 57 in 2006, and the average was higher under president Bush.

It looks pretty random to me, but maybe we can still blame Bush for the higher average during 2001-2008?