As previously noted, progressives and mainstream news media (but I repeat myself) have been engaged in an effort to deny or downplay the impact of crime nationally. Notwithstanding this effort, evidence recently adduced by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights indicates that Americans continue to perceive that crime is increasing. One of the reasons for this perception is the actual increase in violent victimizations committed by strangers.
In 2022, the rate of violent victimizations committed by strangers was 10.6 per 100,000, which was the highest it had been since 2007. The number of homicides committed by strangers also has been increasing over the last few years. In 2019, in cases in which the relationship between the victim and the offender was known, 1,568 of 15,195 homicides were committed by a stranger. That increased to 2,072 of 19,081 homicides in 2020, dipped slightly to 1,735 of 17,330 total homicides in 2021, but increased again to 2,103 of 20,117 homicides in 2022.
Furthermore, as Manhattan Institute scholar Rafael Mangual stated in his written testimony to the commission:
The risk of other types of violent victimizations have risen significantly more than the raw numbers of those offenses would indicate. This is an important point, because in some cases, the raw numbers of some violent crime categories, such as robbery and assault, are down relative to a few years ago (or at least not up as much as homicides are), which creates the impression that what we’ve just experienced over the last few years has been mainly a homicide spike, as opposed to a crime spike, more broadly. In essence, what our current debate about whether crime has risen misses is the post-pandemic changes in what criminologists call “Routine Activities” — the daily habits of society’s potential victims (particularly the amount of time they spend in public and commercial settings in which they’re more likely to be victimized). Consider, for example, that New York City saw 14,159 robberies and 37,416 misdemeanor assaults through November 5th (of 2023). For robberies, this represents a nearly 25% increase, relative to the robberies in the city through November 8th of 2019; and for misdemeanor assaults, a small 1.7% increase. However, these figures significantly understate the degree to which the risk of victimization has risen, because they do not account for the facts that:
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According to an analysis done by the University of Toronto, foot traffic in the city’s business districts (based on mobile phone data) as of this summer was just two-thirds of what it was relative to 2019;
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MTA data show that, more than three years after the pandemic, subway ridership is still 70% less than what it was pre-pandemic;
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JP Morgan Chase data published in 2022 showed that the post-pandemic consumer spending recovery has been driven largely by online spending, rather than in-person shopping; and
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New York City lost more than 5% of its population between April 2020 and July 2022– a trend seen in other major cities, such as San Francisco (down more than 7%), Chicago (down about 3%), Los Angeles (down more than 90,000 residents between 2021-2022) Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, and others.
Mainstream media will continue to ignore or downplay crime throughout the election period. And if Kamala Harris prevails, they will persist.