Here are the murder rates for several US cities 2016 year to date (not annualized). There is much talk about Chicago murders but Baltimore has a murder rate nearly twice that of Chicago and it gets no media attention this year.
For comparison I have included two Canadian cities.
City
Population of central city, notmetropolitan area
Murders
Murder Rate per 100,000 Population
Population estimates are for 2016 from Wikipedia.
Number of murders is from city police reports or the media.
There are a variety of reasons why the crime rates are what they are. NYC’s peak murder rate in the 1980’s was driven by the crack epidemic and the drug dealing that supplied it, a lot of the killings then were drug dealers killing each other (often killing innocent people in the crossfire), things like surge in gang activity because a gang infiltrates an area can do it. Concentration of poverty does it, much of Baltimore’s murder rate is in poor areas, a lot of it from what I read based on gang and drug activity. Easy access to guns has been tied to it, both Chicago and Baltimore get a flood of guns coming in from surrounding areas that have relatively lax gun laws that feeds the black market, NYC is surrounded by areas with tough gun ownership laws and that helps stop the flow of guns (what guns they do get in NYC in the black market tend to come from states with lax laws, but it requires a lot more to get the guns from there to NYC). At times, when NYC had a high murder rate, places now that have high rates were relatively low. There are places not on this list that claim to be low crime, but if you look at the actual crime statistics on a per 100,000 basis, would be up there with the leaders.
I found cites for 2015 that say the murder rate for Indianapolis is 16/100,000. Getting worse too. Now why do I feel safe in most of Indy and not safe in NYC? Probably based on previous history and news reports.
I know I don’t like being in NYC because there are too many people with a very limited number of exits out of Manhattan. Didn’t realize Baltimore was that high, but I’m close enough to south Chicago that those murders permeate more of the news coverage. I’ll just stay in my happy place in the middle of corn
Well . . . I think when NYC is portrayed on TV it retains its mythical gritty quality. When the Law and Order group of shows were more pervasive, you’d see like 3 bodies a night on TV. It can make the City look more dangerous than it is. That’s why children as young as 5th and 6th grade go to school by themselves on public transportation.
Don’t want this to turn political - but aren’t there fewer guns in Canada which would help account for the difference? Also, Chicago has refused to comply with the national standard for reporting crimes so their official FBI rates are not in line with the rest of the country (homicide numbers are clean - they don’t follow the definition for other violent crimes used by the rest of the US).
I worked in DC when the murder rate was the highest in the country. I stuck to “safer” areas of town ( I worked in Georgetown) and did not engage in the drug trade, gangs, etc. which considerably lowered my odds of being murdered. Not saying everyone who is a murder victim brings it on him/her self. Just saying that the murder rate is not everything.
