The Jump in the Urban Homicide Rate

You might be interested in Robert Cherry’s reflections at RealClearPolicy on the sharp increase in the number of homicides in U. S. urban areas:

This past year, there was an unprecedented homicide spike; over one-third across urban America. These increases followed an upward trend since 2014, the year in which Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. However, underpinning the national trend has been the growing proportion of homicides of black men. In 2019, black male homicides were 60 percent more than white male homicides, up from 21 percent more in 2005. By contrast, among women, the ratio remained remarkably stable with black female homicides generally close to 56 percent of white female homicides. Thus, the 2020 spike is not simply an anomaly brought about by the pandemic but a continuation of a persistent trend driven by gun violence in black communities.

Significant factors seem to be

• Percentage of black population
• Poverty
• Families headed by a single parent

I thought that Mr. Cherry’s analysis suffered from a major flaw: the word “gang” does not appear in it. Not just the homicide rate but the rate of violent crime is strongly related to gang activity. Why are gangs so prevalent in urban black neighborhoods? It’s not genetic. I think they are a sign of a learned behavior and families headed by a single parent are just one aspect of that social dysfunction.