Rates of murders and violent crime in the United States decreased in 2017

The official FBI figures for crime and murder are published for 2017 – and the news is good at all levels.

According to new FBI data, rates of violent crime and murder declined in 2017, the first time both categories have declined since 2014.

The murder rate increased from 5.4 per 100,000 in 2016 to 5.3 per 100,000 in 2017, a decrease of almost 2%. The rate had risen more than 22% in 2015 and 2016, from a record low of 4.4 per 100,000 in 2014 to 5.4 per 100,000 in 2016. The drop in 2017 is not completely canceled the increases of the last two years, but it shows at least that things are stabilizing.

The violent crime rate, meanwhile, fell by almost 1% in 2017, from 386.6 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 382.9 per 100,000 in 2017. Again, after 2015 and 2016: the rate of violent crime has increased by nearly 7% in these years, from 361.6 per 100,000 in 2014 to 386.6 in 2016. (The violent crime rate includes murder, rape, robbery and homelessness. in fact serious.)

The property crime rate continued to decline in 2017, dropping from 2,451.6 per 100,000 in 2016 to 2,362.2 in 2017. The property crime rate, unlike the violent and non-violent crime rates, murders, has not increased in 2015 or 2016.

In general, crime rates and murders have fallen in the United States for decades, as a result of the increase in crime and murder in the 1960s and 1990s. The increase of 2015 and of 2016 has prompted some criminal justice experts to fear that trends over several decades will reverse. But the figures for 2017, at least, suggest that recent increases have stopped.

We still do not have the official FBI figures for 2018. But preliminary data from the Brennan Center for Justice, a rights group, predicted that crime rates and murder rates had dropped in the 30 largest cities in the United States. -United. Previous reports on Brennan's major cities also included a decline in crime and killings in 2017.

Now, we will need more years of data to really know that trends in crime and murder are no longer going in the wrong direction. But at least for now, the data has good news for America.

Murders may not be on the rise after all

The increase in the number of murders has garnered a lot of attention in 2015 and 2016, President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have often featured in speeches to justify "tough on crime" policies. But before being able to implement such policies and let them take root (especially in local and state jurisdictions, where federal policymakers have very limited power), these rates seem to be decreasing.

"The notion that the Department of Justice and the White House alone control the thousands of police services that fight crime is not entirely fair," said Ames Grawert. , a researcher at the Brennan Center.

Criminologists still do not know why the murder in particular has increased so much in 2015 and 2016. Some have argued that there could have been a "Ferguson effect", christened after the city of Missouri that has provoked protests against the firing of Michael Brown. : Because of protests against police brutality in recent years, the police have been, according to the theory, frightened by proactive police services, which encourage criminals.

Other experts have argued another type of Ferguson effect: incidents of police brutality and racial disparities in the use of force widely reported by police have led to increased mistrust of the police. police, which complicates the resolution of crimes.

Yet many criminologists, other experts and lawyers have warned that it is also possible that the increases in 2015 and 2016 will be marked by data, not a new long-term trend. This is not unprecedented. in 2005 and 2006, the murder rate in the United States increased before continuing its decline in the long term, reaching record lows in subsequent years.

"We are not even sure that these are real and real increases and decreases," said Inimai Chettiar, Brennan Center director of justice, "because we are looking at data in 2015 and 2016." are only blips, and then it goes down again in 2017 and in 2018 – which means that it is relatively stable and that the crime is falling apart.

As the murder rate in particular is generally low, it is subject to large statistical fluctuations. For example, Brennan found that the murder rate in Las Vegas increased by 23.5% in 2017, but that was due to the shooting at a country music concert that killed 58 people. A single destructive event resulted in a dramatic change in the murder rate.

This is why criminologists typically require several years of data before reporting a significant trend in crime.

It now seems possible – although we need more years of data to confirm – that 2015 and 2016 were replays of 2005 and 2006. If that is true, then maybe the United States does are not in full warned of

For more information on what works to fight crime and violence, read the Vox Exploder.