A Tale of Two Rates

So the murder rate is spiking across the country. This isn’t disputable, and has been reported across most major news sources. And it’s not specific to big cities (sorry to kill that talking point for you). The fact is, everywhere the rate is up. Partially it’s because of the pandemic, experts think. But there are other reasons. One is the gun ownership rate is spiking as well (nothing like it was before the assault weapon’s ban).

What’s more troubling?

The unsolved murder rate is spiking as well. What does that mean? Well, it means that police (who largely have the majority of local budgets) are not solving crimes. Whether this intentional or not (I have my ideas on this), this is impacting us nationally. Believe it or not, police departments are not held to the Protect and Serve standard.

In yet another case of unfounded American exceptionalism, it turns out that our “solved murder rate”, hovering somewhere around 50%, is eclipsed by the same metric in Germany (90+%). 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/11/us-murder-rates-stayed-high-last-year-but-trend-may-be-reversing-.html#:~:text=The%20pandemic%20was%20a%20major,criminals%20more%20quickly%20than%20normal.%E2%80%9D

https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/the-color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons-the-sentencing-project/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/26/us-murders-unsolved-homicide-police-san-francisco-brandon-cheese#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20four%20decades%2C%20homicide%20clearance%20rates%20%E2%80%93%20the%20metric,Project%20and%20Murder%20Accountability%20Project