As cities begin to emerge from pandemic, homicide rates remain high

WASHINGTON (SBG) — Homicide rates in many U.S. cities remained elevated through early 2021, a distressing trend that began before the coronavirus pandemic struck, and experts are still trying to determine exactly why it is happening and how long it might last.

“I can tell you what we don’t know is a lot more than what we do know,” said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

A report released earlier this year by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice and Arnold Ventures analyzing crime trends in 34 American cities showed a 30% increase in homicides in 2020, although murder rates were still far below historic highs. Aggravated assaults and gun assaults also rose by 6% and 8%, respectively, and motor vehicle thefts were up 13%.

Other property crimes and drug crimes declined precipitously, though. Residential burglaries were down 24%, drug offenses dropped 30%, and larceny fell 16%. Domestic violence rates spiked at the start of the pandemic in 12 cities that provided data, but year-end rates were comparable to 2019 figures.

“Over the long-term, property crimes and violent crimes tend to follow one another, but over the short run, they can diverge,” said Richard Rosenfeld, co-author of the report and professor emeritus of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

While there was significant variation in crime rates from city to city, nearly all of the 34 communities studied saw an increase in homicides. According to the report, murder rates exceeded 2019 levels throughout the year—even before the pandemic hit—but they peaked in July before declining steadily for the rest of the year.

By the end of 2020, Chicago had seen 750 murders, an increase of 55% over 2019. In New York City, homicides were up by more than 40%, and Los Angeles and San Francisco experienced dramatic spikes, as well. Researchers generally found greater increases in cities with large populations, higher poverty rates, higher unemployment, and a larger share of residents 18 to 24 years old, but many smaller communities faced rising murder rates too.

The smallest increases over 2019 came between March and May, when most communities imposed severe restrictions on normal activities and residents spent much of their time at home. The biggest spike in homicides occurred in the summer months, as restrictions were eased and cities grappled with mass protests and social unrest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

The National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice analysis reflected data from communities across the country with populations ranging from 245,000 residents to 8.4 million. It was intended to be roughly representative of violent crime levels in large cities, and other reports have uncovered similar findings.

A survey of 66 U.S. local law enforcement agencies by the Major Cities Chiefs Association found a 33% increase in homicides from 2019 to 2020 and a 14% increase in aggravated assaults. However, reports of rape and robbery were down significantly.

Official FBI data for the second half of 2020 will not be available until September, but an FBI report on the first half of the year based on numbers from 12,206 law enforcement agencies broadly reflects comparable trends. Homicides and assaults rose compared to the first six months of 2019, but rape, robbery, and most property crimes declined.

Partial FBI data for the full year shows a 25% increase in murders in 2020, with a smaller rise in violent crime and notable drop in property crime. Those figures do not include several cities that are known to have experienced a surge in homicides like New York, Chicago, and New Orleans.

It remains to be seen if this is all just temporary, but initial signs are somewhat troubling. According to The New York Times, a sample of data from 37 cities for the first three months of 2021 shows an 18% increase in murders over the same period last year.

“We know from some individual agencies that homicides remain elevated into the first quarter of this year,” Rosenfeld said.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association survey also looked at data from several law enforcement agencies in Canada, where homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, and robbery all declined from 2019 to 2020. That suggests the forces driving the increase in certain types of violent crime are, to some degree, uniquely American.

“It’s hard to determine if what’s happening now is a spike or if it’s the emergence of a trend,” said Penny Shtull, an expert on violent crime at Norwich University.

Criminologists are reluctant to draw sweeping conclusions from limited data on short-term changes, but Rosenfeld’s report posited that the pandemic, the protests, and other factors amounted to a “perfect storm” of circumstances. Possible factors cited include:

• The pandemic placed disproportionate economic, mental, and emotional stress on vulnerable individuals
• Severe strain on the resources of institutions that typically respond to violent crime like police, courts, and hospitals
• Violence prevention programs that rely on outreach to at-risk individuals were curtailed due to health risks
• Police may have scaled back proactive enforcement under public scrutiny
• Communities lost confidence in law enforcement after the protests
• A massive increase in firearm purchases at the start of the pandemic
• Reductions in jail populations to comply with coronavirus mitigation protocols

Other experts have also noted a shift in police resources away from patrolling neighborhoods to respond to protests in downtown areas and staffing shortages due to officers catching the coronavirus could have contributed to a summer spike in homicides. Baltimore, where summer protests were mostly peaceful and police did not have to leave regular assignments to contain them, was one of the few major cities that did not see homicides rise in 2020.

“Social systems have been upended, as has traditional law enforcement response,” said David Carter, a former police officer and a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University.

Some researchers believe previous public backlashes against police over the killing of Black suspects drove increases in crime, but evidence of that effect is inconclusive. The fact that the wave of protests over Floyd’s death came just as states were beginning to lift initial pandemic-related restrictions makes it difficult to discern how much the demonstrations and any subsequent changes to policing practices impacted violent crime rates.

Butts cautioned against inferring cause and effect or making substantial policy changes in response to what could turn out to be a temporary variation. The wide range of communities in which increases in homicides occurred indicates the trend has relatively little to do with local policies and conditions.

“There are always people ready to jump on a crime increase and do the Chicken Little, sky-is-falling routine,” he said.

The disparity between rates of different types of crime also complicates efforts to determine root causes. Homicides and shootings skyrocketed in 2020, but other crimes saw smaller increases or decreased. Part of the explanation for that might be situational: if people stayed home and businesses were closed, opportunities for some crimes declined.

“Robbery and sexual assault potential victims were more likely to be home with pandemic restrictions, thereby reducing the number of possible victims,” Carter said. “Property crimes, notably home burglary and theft, were down because so many people were home for work and school.”

The FBI data also showed a pronounced uptick in arsons in the first half of 2020, with a 19% increase over the same period in 2019, but they appear to have leveled off later in the year. In cities with populations of 1 million or more, arson reports were up 52% in the first six months of 2020.

Some of that increase can likely be attributed to the protests in late May and June, during which vehicles and buildings were sometimes set ablaze by demonstrators. Research also shows arson can surge during times of economic desperation.

According to Butts, the underlying cause of the spike in arson could be more complicated. With schools and businesses closed, young people and people who were marginally engaged in the labor force found their lives disrupted and might have acted out in destructive ways.

“When you have a major shock to the culture like that, it makes sense you’re going to see some behaviors you haven’t seen in the past,” he said.

To the extent that any of these trends are fueled by the pandemic, the easing of restrictions and the success of vaccination efforts could provide relief in the coming months. Although coronavirus cases are rising in some states and concerns about variants remain, some semblance of normalcy could return this summer.

“The thought is, as life returns to a more normal pattern, people return to work, and police reforms become normalized, violent crime will decrease,” Carter said.

Rosenfeld agreed there is cause for optimism that homicide numbers will improve as the nation recovers from the outbreak. However, he also observed the conditions that appear to have depressed other violent crimes and property crimes will likely dissipate.

“As pandemic-related restrictions are eased, we’re going to have more people out in the streets, and that’s going to generate more opportunities for street crime,” he said.

Another challenge for researchers trying to make sense of these trends is a major shift in how the FBI records crime data. As of Jan. 1, the agency is relying on the National Incident Based Response System to collect data instead of the Summary Reporting System.

Eventually, that should result in better data, but many police departments have not yet made the transition to the NIBRS and federal crime figures could be less reliable for a few years.

“We have these big holes now in crime data, so it’ll be really hard to piece together the explanation of what happened in 2020 and early 2021,” Butts said.

The fallout from the last 13 months is certain to be felt for many years, and lingering effects on crime rates could turn out to be part of that. Experts are hopeful more will become clear as additional data is released from across the country, but for now, some key questions remain unanswered.

“I think it’s going to take us years to fully understand the impact the pandemic has had on all aspects of social life,” Shtull said.