Bad neighborhoods: 1% of U.S. counties responsible for 42% of America’s murders

Washington Times ^ | 01/18/2023 | Stephen Dinan

[SeekAndFind]

Homicide rates have spiked, but most of America has remained untouched.

Only a tiny fraction of U.S. counties account for nearly all of the country’s homicides, according to research released Tuesday that showed a striking concentration where killings take place.

The worst 31 counties — generally urban jurisdictions — have about a fifth of the country’s population but accounted for 42% of the country’s homicides in 2020, said John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, which conducted the study.

The worst 5% of counties accounted for 73% of homicides. That ticked up slightly from 69% in 2014 and 70% in 2016.

Meanwhile, 52% of counties recorded no homicides in 2020, and another 16% recorded only a single killing.

“Murders are a problem in a very small percentage of the counties in the United States,” Mr. Lott told The Washington Times.

Even in those higher-homicide counties, the crime is still concentrated, he said.

Mr. Lott crunched the data for Los Angeles County and found that 10% of the county’s ZIP codes accounted for 41% of the homicides. Another 10% accounted for 26% more.

“Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders,” he wrote in his report.

Mr. Lott relied on FBI data for his study, using the bureau’s Supplementary Homicide Report. For states that don’t report data to the FBI or where the data is believed to be a dramatic undercount, he relied on public uniform crime reports.

[SeekAndFind]

Cook County in Illinois — home to Chicago — led the country with 775 reported homicides in 2020. It was followed by Los Angeles County at 691, Houston home Harris County in Texas at 537, Philadelphia at 495

[2banana]

Diversity is a strength!

[Governor Dinwiddie]

The color of crime, very dark statistics.

[TheDon]

The article does a great job describing the elephant in America’s living room.

[Secret Agent Man]

Imagine if we could just obliterate those neighborhoods in one quick shot. The country would be 42% safer overnight.

[escapefromboston]

Those darn Amish

[Portnoy001]

John Lott is one of the greatest Americans in modern times. He has pretty much single-handedly fought off fake leftist scare tactics with pure facts.

I give him a lot of credit for the spread of concealed carry in the 90-2010’s, and some of the credit for the current permitless carry movement.

[UNGN]

America, outside of the blue cities, is “Europe with AR-15’s”

[Levy78]

Wrong animal in your metaphor.

[EEGator]

Homeboy Sapien Africanus

[frank ballenger]

FBI — Table 43https://ucr.fbi.gov
table-43
Race
TOTAL 6,816,975 white 4,729,290 black 1,815,144
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter total 7,964 white 3,650 black 4,078
/////////////////////////////////
US Bureau of Census Quick Facts
White alone percent 75.8%
Black or African American alone, percent 13.6%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent 1.3%
Asian alone, percent 6.1%

[SteelPSUGOP]

I bet if one looked at the laws in these areas, one would see they have some of the strictest laws vs other areas.

The issue is the thugs who infest these areas do all the killing and are not going to follow the law. The general population is too scared to do anything and the cops have been emasculated by the BLM/Soros/Woke folk.

Screw em. I live in the country. Let the gang bangers kill each other. Just another dead statistic. Not worried about them at all because out here, folks know how to shoot to actually hit something.

[rlmorel]

It is a horrible and sad fact that something like 40% of violent crime in the USA (such as Murder, Rape, Aggravated Assault and Armed Robbery) is caused by around 1-2% of the population.

Here is the one graphic from the FBI UCR (Unified Crime Reporting) database that lays the groundwork for EVERYTHING that follows:

Think about it. Imagine a society where only 100 people live. Think of a plane crash, and 100 people survive in some place cut off from the world.

In that secluded society of 100 survivors, SIX people, identifiable by their sex and the color of their skin, commit nearly HALF the violent crime. The murders. The rapes. Beating people up. Robbing them of their food or belongings. Six people rampaging through this small community. Imagine in a normal world, if you lived in a community and six people commit half the violent crime...what would happen? Likely, those six people would be banished...if they made it out of town. Especially after committing violence against someone who is well known or loved by someone.

What makes this far, FAR more startling is that of the six out of 100 men...it isn't actually all of them. It is only one third of them or TWO people out of that 100 people in that society (according to a study by a very Leftist organization that probably wants that number inflated...so for the sake of balance, let's say it is only ONE out of every six black males who have a felony criminal record.)

To put that in perspective, it could be at the very least, just one black man, or two black men who might be responsible for nearly half the crime.

(Note that I make the assumption that in all of this that there is no easy way to tell which one or two men out of six is really murdering, raping, assaulting, or robbing people in this small society. This is where increasing the volume (going from "6 in 100") to ("600 out of 10,000") makes the point. If you are the police, responding, it isn't "John" as it might be in a 100 person society, it becomes looking for someone who looks like "John". This is a terrible thing for the other five percent woh are trying to support a family, live a law-abiding life. It is that malignant and dangerous one or two percent. That is the sad, sad truth, borne out by the FBI Crime Statistics database. It is unarguable if one accepts those statistics in the graph above as anywhere near the truth.

[The Duke]

Well, that explains why I’ve been feeling so safe since moving to a small rural town.

[MileHi]

Is there some common demographic and political component to these counties? I think Lott is closing in on the part the media doesn’t want to talk about.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Nuke them from orbit.

[SaxxonWoods]

“Well, that explains why I’ve been feeling so safe since moving to a small rural town.”

Us too, though the situation isn’t new, it’s been basically this way for decades.

[usconservative]

Cook County in Illinois — home to Chicago — led the country with 775 reported homicides in 2020

WOO HOO!! Chicago is the murder capital again! #1 with a bullet baby!

[UNGN]

My neighborhood of 30,000 is 20% minority (indians and Asians), 20 miles from 1.5 murder per day, blue run Dallas.

We have had 3 Murders in the 23 years I’ve lived here. 2 were husbands killing their wives, one one a Cartel Lawyer FBI informant shot by a Cartel khit squad.

When my kid was 14, EVERY ONE of his friends had an AR-15. When they turned 21, they all got concealed carry permits.

Its DEFINITELY not the guns causing the crime in the blue cities.

[SuperLuminal]

For later...