Post Ferguson Murder Spike — The Past Thirty Years Have NEVER Seen A 16% Increase

By Steve Sailer

09/14/2015

How big would a 16% increase in homicides be?

Pretty big.

FiveThirtyEight’s finding that homicides in the 59 biggest cities were up 16% in 2015 through the first anniversary of Ferguson compared to the same time period in 2014 has been put into perspective by a website called Numbers Box:

A 16% Increase in Murders would be Unprecedented

In response to recent news articles that cited a few cities worth of evidence to show a surge in crime rates, fivethirtyeight compiled a fantastic set of 2015 data for 60 cities to ask how the murder rate has actually changed. They found the rate has risen by 16%, but oddly used that to argue that reports have been exaggerated. But 16% would be an unprecedented increase.

Of course, the odds are that the spike in homicides will be not quite as high for the whole year. But still …

< Previous

Next >