New York Mayor Bill de Blasio likes to repeat the claim that New York City is the “safest big city” in the United States. It’s a superlative that he frequently touts, but when you take a closer look at the underlying evidence behind this assertion, he may be overstating his case. While New York is the safest among America’s very large cities, that only holds true if you look at a particularly small group of highly populated metropolises.

This particular claim is one that Mayor de Blasio repeated last week in a statement responding to the appeals court ruling on President Trump’s executive order on immigration. Here’s the full statement:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just said, ‘No you can’t,’ to the Trump Administration and its un-American travel and refugee bans. Here in New York – the safest big city in America – we will always protect our neighbors, no matter where they came from or when they got here. Those are our values.

And here’s a tweet from last June repeating the same claim:

NYC: Still the safest big city in America. pic.twitter.com/GTktjlcCqL

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 3, 2016

To be fair to de Blasio, there is some subjectivity when it comes to interpreting what he’s saying. Namely, there is no clear, universally accepted definition of what counts as a large city. And assuming he’s talking about population, there is no agreed upon size that makes a city large or small. At Law Street, we set a threshold of at least 200,000 residents to define large cities, but given that de Blasio is mayor of a city with about 8.5 million people, he might only be thinking of a smaller group of very large cities.

So what does the data tell us? When thinking about safety, we typically look to the FBI’s annual crime statistics, which detail the number of violent crimes known to law enforcement in various cities, states, counties, etc. This data, part of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, is particularly useful because it provides the same data for nearly every city in the country. To compare between multiple cities, we take the total number of violent crimes–a category that includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault–and adjust it by population to calculate a violent crime rate per 100,000 people. In 2015, the most recent full year with FBI data, New York City had a crime rate of 586 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

In order to test Mayor de Blasio’s claim, we need to look at New York in the context of other large cities. If we use the 200,000 population threshold, New York does not have the lowest violent crime rate. Only when you raise the threshold significantly–looking only at cities with populations larger 1.5 million people–does New York have the lowest crime rate.

Using the table below, you can switch between different population thresholds to see how New York’s crime rate stacks up against other cities. Each city’s murder rate per 100,000 people is also included for comparison.

As you can see, using such a narrow definition for what qualifies as a large city means including New York and just five other American cities–Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia. In the most narrow sense, the Mayor’s claim is accurate when you limit the scope of comparable cities, but you may also want to compare New York to other cities that may not be quite as big. Ultimately, evaluating this claim comes down to how big a city should be in order for it to be compared to the largest one in the country.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is Bill de Blasio’s Claim that New York is the “Safest Big City” Overstated? appeared first on Law Street.

At a meeting with leaders of the National Sheriffs’ Association on Tuesday, Donald Trump made a false claim about the U.S. murder rate, a statement that he has repeated several times in the past. The comment came as he was touting the importance of meeting with local sheriffs, something he emphasized given that, as he claims, the murder rate is the highest that is has been in 47 years. But when you look at official FBI data, almost the opposite is true.

Here’s the president’s full statement according to a White House readout of his remarks:

And yet the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that — I’d say that in a speech and everybody was surprised, because the press doesn’t tell it like it is. It wasn’t to their advantage to say that. But the murder rate is the highest it’s been in, I guess, from 45 to 47 years.

So, is President Trump right? Is the murder rate at a multi-decade high? If you look at it literally, his claim is false on its face; the murder rate actually remains near historic lows. But if you dig deep enough, there is something unusual about the recent change in the murder rate.

First, let’s take a look at his actual claim. In 2015, the most recent year with available data from the FBI, the U.S. murder rate was 4.9 murders per 100,000 people. The highest murder rate in the last 47 years–the date range selected by President Trump–was in 1980, which had a murder rate of 10.2 per 100,000 people. Put simply, the highest murder rate in the past several decades was more than twice as high as the murder rate in 2015. While it is possible that the murder rate increased slightly in 2016, there is absolutely no evidence that went up by more than 100 percent, which it would need to do for the president’s claim to be true.

Here’s a graph showing how the murder rate has changed over the past 50 years:

With a few exceptions–notably 2015–the murder rate has trended downward for more than two decades. Despite a recent increase in murders, the murder rate remains near the lowest point that it has been in half a century.

Now let’s also take a brief moment to look at where this data comes from, and why it’s the best available to tell us about U.S. crime rates. Each year, the FBI publishes its annual Crime in the United States report, which is created through an extensive collaborative effort between the FBI and nearly every law enforcement agency in the United States. The report includes data from more than 18,000 agencies that cover nearly 98 percent of the U.S. population. This report is the most authoritative collection of crime data in the United States, detailing every criminal offense known to law enforcement.

While the actual claim that Donald Trump made on Tuesday–and also something that he frequently alluded to during the course of his campaign–is false, there is something noteworthy about the 2015 data. Namely, there was a significant increase that year compared to the previous year, a jump of about 11 percent. This single year increase is by far the largest in recent years. But despite that, 4.9 murders per 100,000 people is still lower than the 2009 rate.

Now that doesn’t mean that the recent jump in the murder rate is insignificant, but when it comes to addressing the problem, it may be more helpful to look at what is happening in individual cities. In fact, the number of murders did not increase in every city in 2015, there was significant variation between them. Law Street has an interactive map showing exactly how murder rates changed in America’s largest cities.

While Trump’s claim about the murder rate in the United States is incorrect, if you dig deep enough there is something noteworthy about recent crime statistics. This would be particularly true if the recent increase becomes a trend. It is important to note that the issue with Donald Trump’s claim isn’t just a matter of semantics–what he said is quite different from what actually appears to be important from the most recent crime statistics. Making claims that wildly overstate the number of murders in the United States is not conducive to addressing something that might be a very serious problem if it becomes a persistent trend.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post President Trump Continues to Make False Claims about the U.S. Murder Rate appeared first on Law Street.

On Thursday night, Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican nomination for president in Cleveland. In his acceptance speech Trump made one thing abundantly clear: he promises to be the law and order candidate. But with that promise came the need for justification: why do we need a law and order president? Trump sought to answer that question and more by painting a particularly bleak picture of America.

Let’s take a closer look at some of Trump’s claims and put them in some much-needed context. The quotes below are taken from his prepared remarks obtained by Politico Thursday afternoon. The transcript is nearly identical to the actual speech but may have some slight differences.

Where are our violent crime numbers?

Donald Trump started his speech with some stark claims about crime in the United States:

Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years.

The 17 percent claim appears to come from a Washington Post analysis that was published earlier this year. The Post looked at preliminary crime data from 50 of the largest American cities and found that murders increased by about 17 percent in 2015. So yes, it does appear that there is an increase in homicides and there may even be an uptick in violent crime–we’ll know for sure when the FBI releases its formal statistics this fall. But it’s also important to keep this development in context.

Even with a few years of a crime spike, America is much safer than it was a two decades ago. In fact, the violent crime rate has dropped precipitously over the last 25 years. As the chart below shows, the violent crime rate has dropped by about 43 percent between 1995 and 2014. While we don’t have more recent data, it is particularly unlikely that we have reversed many of those gains within the last year and a half. We may be experiencing a spike in violent crime right now, but we currently have no indication that it will lead to a multiyear trend of increasing crime rates.

The chart below shows how violent crime has dropped over the past several decades. Note that the Y-Axis does not start at zero, rather it starts at 300 to better illustrate the relationship between each point.

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report

Trump specifically spoke about murder rates, which have also fallen in a similar fashion. In 1995 there were 8.2 murders per 100,000 people. In 2014 the rate was 4.5. The uptick identified by the Washington Post is certainly troubling, but that too must be taken in context. Trump accurately characterized the 17 percent spike as the largest change in the past 25 years. But as the Post points out, last year’s homicide rate remains below where it was in 2008 and not every city saw an increase. Of the largest 50 cities, 36 saw an increase in murders while 14 experienced a decrease or no change.

What about Chicago?

Trump went on to note that the number of shootings in Chicago is particularly high this year:

In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.

This statistic also appears to be true. According to the Chicago Tribune’s count, there have been 2,224 shooting victims between the beginning of the year and July 22. Last year there was 2,988 shootings in total, meaning that this year will likely surpass that final count.

There does appear to be a real problem with gun violence and homicides in many American cities. We do not have enough data to say whether this is a durable trend or just an uptick, but even accounting for an increase, violence remains near historic lows. We also don’t know what is responsible for the recent developments, as many competing theories have been thrown around. It is a complex and multifaceted problem that many local police departments will need to address.

Police in America

Trump also argued that law enforcement deaths are increasing:

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 percent compared to this point last year.

According to the Officer Down Memorial page, which tracks police deaths as they happen, there have been 68 police officers killed in the line of duty so far this year, a 1 percent decrease. The National Law Enforcement Memorials Fund also keeps an independent count of officer deaths. According to the NLEMF’s data, there were 63 officer deaths at this point last year and there are 67 this year–a 6 percent increase. Both of those total counts include accidental deaths, but they also note that firearm-related deaths are up in 2016. A large part of that increase came in two recent high-profile attacks on police in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

After the Dallas attack, we noted that the resulting five officers deaths amounted to about 10 percent of the previous year’s total. According to preliminary numbers from the FBI, which specifically tracks felonious deaths, there were 42 officers killed in 2015. While the next round of FBI statistics on officer deaths and assaults in the line of duty will be particularly useful to inform these debates, the general trend has been going downward. For more, you can read our article titled, “What We Know About Officer Deaths in the Line of Duty”

Donald Trump went on to make several additional claims in his speech that have since been rigorously fact-checked. While Trump’s crime-related claims are directionally accurate, it is important to look at the surrounding context. Much of Trump’s speech seemed to hinge on whether or not the rule of law is breaking down in the United States. He argues that it has and that is why he is campaigning as the law and order candidate. However, despite a recent spike in murders and possibly violent crime, those rates remain near modern lows. Similarly, the number of police officers killed and assaulted has been declining over the past several years. While some of that progress may have been reversed temporarily, it’s important to ask whether that represents a durable trend or if it is simply a temporary uptick.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is the World as Scary as Donald Trump Says it is? appeared first on Law Street.

Baltimore recorded its 300th homicide of 2015 last month, marking the highest number of killings for the city since 1999. Given the decrease in the city’s population over the past several decades, the actual murder rate in 2015 may be the highest in the city’s history. While the rising number of homicides is certainly troubling for Baltimore, it is not the only U.S. city experiencing a spike in homicides. The explanations for this abrupt rise, after years of decline, range from the after-effects of much-publicized police killings to a drug epidemic to simply warmer weather. This article will examine this rise and seek to determine if it is an outlier or a sign of some new trend.

Murders on the Decline?

Before even getting to whether homicides are an increasing threat or even up in 2015, the numbers have to be put into perspective. The much larger trend at play has been a large and consistent decline in violent crime, including homicides, over the past few decades.

Since 1993, the violent crime rate per 100,000 people in the United States has dropped by more than 50 percent. Additionally, while the drop was felt nationwide, it was also specifically evident in cities like New York that have historically been associated with crime, though that association may be starting to wear off. In 1990, there were 2,245 homicides in New York City. By contrast, there were 328 murders in 2014, the lowest number seen since 1963 when New York was also a much smaller city. In other words, crime is down, way down, from twenty years ago. Two other examples are Los Angeles and Washington D.C., which saw their murder rates drop 90 and 76 percent respectively since 1992.

The explanations behind these drops range far and wide. A number of factors have been suggested, including a better economy, higher incarceration rates, the death penalty, more police officers, and even the greater acceptance of abortions to name a few. While all these have been suggested, however, none has necessarily been shown to hold water. Interestingly one of the most scientifically supported reasons has been the reduced use of lead in everyday goods because lead exposure in children is believed to cause more violent behavior. Reduced drug and alcohol use is another factor that has been cited in the reduction.

What’s Going on This Year?

In August, the New York Times published an article noting that 35 U.S. cities have seen their murder rates rise in 2015. This includes a number of major cities in the U.S. such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and even the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. After years of dramatic decline, what could be causing these rates to reverse course and begin to rise again?

The Devil is in the Details

While the data seems to suggest a rise in violent crime and there are several plausible sounding theories to support it, is it actually happening?  The answer to that question is both yes and no. After the New York Times published its article, Five Thirty Eight decided to take a closer look at the statistics. Using partial-year data for the nation’s 60 largest cities, it found that homicides are indeed up 20 percent from last year in 26 of the nation’s 60 largest cities and 16 percent overall. However, they were also down in 19 of the same 60 cities including places like Boston, Las Vegas, and San Diego to name a few. In other words, the results used in the sample from the Times article may be skewed. While certain cities’ homicide numbers are up, at most they are only up a fraction or not at all. It is also important to look at the raw numbers in addition to the percentages when there is a relatively small number of homicides to begin with. For example, Five Thirty Eight found that Seattle, Washington experienced a 20 percent increase in homicides at the end of August relative to the previous year, but that increase was the result of three additional murders–going from 15 in 2014 to 18 this year. It is also important to acknowledge that the data is preliminary and only includes part of the year. The full, definitive dataset will not be available until the FBI publishes its annual statistics next fall.

While certain cities’ homicide numbers are up, in most they are only up a fraction or not at all. It is also important to look at the raw numbers in addition to the percentages when there is a relatively small number of homicides to begin with. For example, Five Thirty Eight found that Seattle, Washington experienced a 20 percent increase in homicides at the end of August relative to the previous year, but that increase was the result of three additional murders–going from 15 in 2014 to 18 this year. It is also important to acknowledge that the data is preliminary and only includes part of the year. The full, definitive dataset will not be available until the FBI publishes its annual statistics next fall.

Thus, while the overall rise in the national rate of 16 percent is statistically significant–Five Thirty Eight’s finding among the largest 60 cities–many cities’ individual changes are not. Statistical significance is a test to determine whether or not a change or relationship is the result of chance. It is also worth noting that in 2005 almost an identical rise of 15 percent in the national rate of homicides occurred before the number regressed to the mean and continued its slow decline.

The Who, What, Where, and Why

There seem to be as many explanations for murders may be rising in these cities as there were in explaining the large decline in violent crime over previous two decades. However, many of theories behind the recent rise in homicides do not seem to stand up to scrutiny either.

One that has gained a lot of traction is a theory known as the “Ferguson Effect.” According to this theory, a major contributing factor to the spike in violence is a growing reluctance among police officers to carry out routine police work in fear of criticism. This theory is largely a response to the controversial shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri as well as the death of Freddie Gray while in the custody of Baltimore policy. Put simply, bad guys are running free because police officers fear public damnation.

Ironically, there is competing theory from a community perspective, arguing that police actions have made regular citizens less likely to go to the police for assistance and more willing to take matters into their own hands. In either case the rise in violence in St. Louis or Baltimore, which has been attributed by some as the result of a Ferguson Effect, actually started prior to the highly publicized incidents of police brutality so these explanations do not seem very plausible. Attorney General Lauretta Lynch also testified before Congress saying that there is “no data” to support that theory.

Another explanation is the vast number of guns in the United States. While the exact number of guns in civilian circulation is impossible to pinpoint, it is estimated there are as many as 357 million nationwide–approximately 40 million more guns than U.S. citizens. Once again, while having more guns around likely leads to more gun-related deaths, there were hundreds of millions of guns around prior to this year so that explanation is also not very convincing.

Others argue that an increase in gang violence, fueled by drugs, has led to increased homicides. Of the reasons given, increased gang warfare is one of most likely explanations because it would likely affect only certain neighborhoods or cities and not the entire country. Some argue that cities like Chicago, are experiencing an increase in gang violence and illegal guns, which may explain recent spikes in homicides, but that is unlikely to be the case for every city.

Even the economy has been blamed as part of the “routine activities theory,” which suggests that when people are better off financially they more likely to go shopping or out to eat and thus more likely to encounter criminals. Others argue that crime generally goes down when the economy is doing well. However, John Roman, a senior fellow at the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, noted in an interview with Vox that a good economy can also lead to higher crime if improvements are not distributed equally and the needs of the underserved are not addressed.

When you look at all of the data and try to make sense of it with the competing theories, it seems likely that each city has its own explanation. We do not yet know whether or not the spike identified this summer is indicative of a trend, but if that is the case we likely need more data to determine what might be causing it.

The accompanying video looks at the increase and some of the reasons suggested for it:

Perception is Believing

Despite what the numbers say or whether the theories much of this data is based on are viable, people ultimately make up their own minds on what is true or not. In a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 56 percent of  those polled believed that gun violence was higher than it was 20 years earlier, but in reality, gun homicides had nearly been cut in half by 2013.  This poll was conducted before the recent spate of highly publicized police killings, indicating the number may even be even higher now. It is not surprising the notion of higher homicide rates resonate with people, even if they are a one term aberration and near historic lows. The following video looks at the perception or misperception of crime in the United States:

Conclusion

While violent crime, including homicides, has been decreasing since the early 90s, recent evidence suggests there may be a spike in homicides this year–at least in some of the United States’ largest cities. But it remains unclear whether this is emblematic of a trend, or even if it was just a brief increase as has often occurred in the past. Even with this increase, however, the rate is nowhere near approaching the record highs from two-decades ago.

In light of these findings, many questions emerge. Why is the homicide rate up this year? Are these numbers skewed by an unrepresentative sample? Is this the sign of a trend or just a temporary blip? Questions like these will not be answered for years if they are answered at all. While it is necessary to try and understand the data in order to improve policing and crime-related public policy, it is important to take a more local look at why homicides might be going up in each city. A spike in several cities is not necessarily indicative of a national problem.

Resources

The Washington Post: Baltimore’s 300th Killing This Year: A violent Milestone in a Riot-Scarred City

NYC: News from the Blue Room

The New York Times: Murders in New York Drop to a Record Low, but Officers Aren’t Celebrating

Forbes: What’s Behind the Decline in Crime?

The New York Times: Murder Rates Rising Sharply in Many U.S. Cities

Vox: Why Murder Rates are Up in St. Louis, Baltimore and Some Other Cities

The Washington Post: There are Now More Guns Than People in the United States

Five Thirty Eight: Scare Headlines Exaggerate the U.S. Crime Wave

Stat Pac: Statistical Significance

Pew Research Center: Gun Homicide Steady After Decline in the 90s; Suicide Rates Edge Up

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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