FBI statistics on Monday confirmed what residents of big cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Cleveland and Las Vegas have seen on the streets: Violent crime in the US is on the rise, posting its biggest one-year percentage increase since 1991.
In Philadelphia, homicides jumped from 330 in 2004 to 377 last year, a 14 percent increase, according to the FBI. Murders climbed from 272 to 334 in Houston, a 23 percent rise, and from 131 to 144 in Las Vegas, a 10 percent increase.
Jeffrey Sedgwick, director of the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, cautioned that it is not yet clear whether the FBI numbers reflect a real increase, or what statisticians call "statistical noise."
Sedgwick said it is possible that crime rates in the US are approaching a floor below which it may be difficult or even impossible to go. "I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect you can always drive the crime rate down," he said.
Some criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime. Crime dropped dramatically during the 1990s, and some cities have since abandoned effective programs that emphasized prevention, the putting of more cops on the street, and controls on the spread of guns.
"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Still, Fox said, "We're still far better off than we were during the double-digit crime inflation we saw in the 1970s."
In Philadelphia, which has had more than 160 murders this year, the police department has responded by creating a special unit charged with roaming the streets in the dangerous hours between 10pm and 3am. The program, which is expected to start soon, will shift 46 officers from other assignments.
Philadelphia police Captain Benjamin Naish said more people appear to be settling disputes with guns.
"I think that everybody continues to be frustrated within the government, within the department," he said. Philadelphia police have stressed that the number of killings is still below the averages in the mid-1990s and far below the 525 homicides in 1990.
The overall national increase in violent crime was modest, 2.5 percent, which equates to more than 1.4 million crimes. Nevertheless, that was the largest percentage increase since 1991.
Nationally, murders rose 4.8 percent, meaning there were more than 16,900 victims last year. That would be the most since 1998 and the largest percentage increase in 15 years.
Los Angeles and New York were among several big cities that saw murder numbers drop.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS