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malganis12 t1_jacu2zt wrote

Incoming: The gaslighters who say it's all good because violent crime is down since the 1920's or something.

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ProgressBartender t1_jadybe2 wrote

From the article: >D.C. police statistics show 35 people have been victims of homicides this year, 10 more than at this time in 2022.

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strangechicken t1_jad5dfa wrote

Hey, Al Capone hasn't had an incident since 1947 so something is working /s

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hemlockone t1_jae0m2o wrote

I don't think it's gaslighting to say that it's been worse in the recent past (the article says number of homicides in 2022 was about the same 2001). The early 90's was a crazy time in DC.

It is easy to argue that what we are today isn't a good thing, though, even with that information. It is not trending in a good direction, and that value doesn't give me a warm fuzzy.

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Ok_Culture_3621 t1_jaehvsj wrote

It helps that most people on Reddit don’t seem to know what “gaslighting” means.

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buxtonOJ t1_jaf3udr wrote

Don’t gate-keep my gaslighting!!

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Burn_AfterReading_U t1_jaejo6a wrote

This guy’s definition seems to be making someone pause for some nuance for one second

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rrocketman88 t1_jacmbdo wrote

this is fine

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ClusterFugazi t1_jacyhrl wrote

Remember all the criminal apologists like to say here, “It’s not as bad as the 90’s.”

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Smart-Management-670 t1_jadhdr0 wrote

Right . In the late 80’s and 90’s crack was to blame . These days , the council and mayor are to blame .

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Estoril_BlueM3 t1_jaejt57 wrote

Careful. I was banned from the Md. forum for noting the same about Baltimore.

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tehruben OP t1_jaciqr5 wrote

I think this paragraph gives a little context to the rise and hopefully stops any "is it or isn't it getting worse" commentary:

"Authorities said 203 people were killed in D.C. last year, 10 percent fewer than in 2021. But it was the second consecutive year the city breached the 200-mark for homicides. Before 2021, the District last saw 200 or more killings in 2003."

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MountainMantologist t1_jad3290 wrote

20 years of homicide data here

  • 2003 - 248
  • 2004 - 198
  • 2005 - 195
  • 2006 - 169
  • 2007 - 181
  • 2008 - 186
  • 2009 - 144
  • 2010 - 132
  • 2011 - 108
  • 2012 - 88
  • 2013 - 104
  • 2014 - 105
  • 2015 - 162
  • 2016 - 135
  • 2017 - 116
  • 2018 - 160
  • 2019 - 166
  • 2020 - 198
  • 2021 - 226
  • 2022 - 203
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strangechicken t1_jad567d wrote

My brain: 2003 wasn't 20 years ago...oh no.

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diaymujer t1_jadjrhl wrote

Let me tell you about the 70s! In my brain. The 70s will always be about 30 years ago until I do the math.

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imthefuckinginternet t1_jadvi7p wrote

Wow, i wonder who got elected approximately 9-10 years ago who could have been in charge of this rise?

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Most_kinds_of_Dirt t1_jad59nr wrote

Whether a number hits 200 or not is kind of a helpful metric, but it can be more informative to just look at the actual totals:

Category 1992 2002 2007 2012 2017 2022
Homicide 443 264 181 88 116 201
Sex Abuse 215 262 192 263 295 158
Assault w/ a dangerous weapon 8,568 4,854 3,686 2,356 1,859 1,383
Robbery 7,459 3,731 4,261 4,262 2,179 2,064
Violent Crime (total) 16,685 9,109 8,320 6,969 4,449 3,806

Data for other years is available here:

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Macrophage87 t1_jae7ftu wrote

It seems that more assults are turning into murders. Is that because more dangerous weapons or just more practice?

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Most_kinds_of_Dirt t1_jaeuatj wrote

Assaults are down. Homicides are up.

I don't think we can speculate that a third variable (deadlier or more accurate guns) caused either of those trends - at least not based on this data alone.

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High_DC t1_jaf27yw wrote

It's not that guns are deadlier or more accurate. It's that there are more guns, period. Maybe a few years ago the dude who just killed his two roommates wouldn't have had a gun and would have assaulted them, but he had a ghost gun, apparently, so it became a homicide.

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Most_kinds_of_Dirt t1_jaf4ymy wrote

You're still assuming that homicides are replacing assaults.

That's one possible explanation, but there isn't nearly enough information in the chart above to conclude that. An alternative explanation could just be that Covid made people stay inside, and that assaults happen more to strangers on the street while homicide happens more often between people who know each other and who spend lots of time together indoors.

Spending more time indoors could explain those trends just as easily as increased gun ownership. There isn't enough info in the chart above to tell which of those factors is having an impact.

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essential_pseudonym t1_jae34xr wrote

DC population has increased over that time period as well, no? A more useful statistics would be homicide per thousand resident, for example.

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worthysimba t1_jacnngo wrote

Yeah for sure three years of data points shows everything. Case closed boys. Wrap it up.

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RandomLogicThough t1_jacntvh wrote

I mean, that's sort of 20 years of data too.

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PooPooDooDoo t1_jacruu1 wrote

Probably goes back farther than 2003 so my guess is it is even more.

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worthysimba t1_jacsipi wrote

No it isn’t. It’s really only two years. Does it matter if it was under 200 if it was 197 a bunch of those years? This is not informative data AT ALL. Sure, the data does exist, but the assertion that this meaningless statement (which doesn’t provide the data) stops any debate is fucking ludicrous.

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rrocketman88 t1_jacspai wrote

It was down in the low 100s like ten years ago.

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worthysimba t1_jadphft wrote

You’re missing the point

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rrocketman88 t1_jadqgl6 wrote

Then enlighten me.

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worthysimba t1_jadr5b2 wrote

I was replying to

> I think this paragraph gives a little context to the rise and hopefully stops any "is it or isn't it getting worse" commentary:

>"Authorities said 203 people were killed in D.C. last year, 10 percent fewer than in 2021. But it was the second consecutive year the city breached the 200-mark for homicides. Before 2021, the District last saw 200 or more killings in 2003."

My point was that the quote they were asserting would stop any commentary about whether things are getting worse was not at all informative about whether things are getting worse.

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rrocketman88 t1_jadrv2t wrote

It’s an article summarizing the data. If you want the full picture it’s not hard to find. You make it seem like they’re purposefully omitting data to make it seem worse than it actually is but from what I can tell they are not.

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worthysimba t1_jadtcb8 wrote

Holy fuck the irony. You’re mad at me for making it seem like the data is saying something it may or may not say. That’s gold dude.

Why 88 btw?

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rrocketman88 t1_jadutkn wrote

What? Humans compare round numbers. That’s why 200 is called out in the article. It’s a summary.

1988 - Why?

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malganis12 t1_jacu78o wrote

> Does it matter if it was under 200 if it was 197 a bunch of those years?

It was not 197 in a bunch of those years.

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worthysimba t1_jadpm5j wrote

You’re missing the point. The editorialized bullshit of claiming that sentence actually had any significance is the point

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RandomLogicThough t1_jacszf8 wrote

Yea, I didn't make that assertion - but the data does go over a much larger number of years even if it is extremely sparse and certainly it is some data...even with your numbers that would still show a change (though I feel like the real numbers were like 165-185 but it's been a long time since I looked).

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worthysimba t1_jadpuri wrote

Yeah the comment I replied to said that. Hence why I said it.

I don’t have numbers. I don’t know what you’re calling my numbers. I gave one hypothetical.

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deepstate_fangirl t1_jad4ld4 wrote

There was an Ezra Klein show episode last year about murder rates and police presence that I think did a really good job making sense of what's going on, namely:

  • murder rates increasing
  • police presence makes crime rates decrease
  • police presence also traumatic for communities

The guest lays out that the US is a powder keg right now because we continually treat symptoms instead of root causes.

Link because it's a good listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-is-murder-spiking-and-can-cities-address-it/id1548604447?i=1000542813165

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no_sight t1_jadcbp2 wrote

Is police presence more or less traumatic than murder? Seems like that is the community decision to make

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deepstate_fangirl t1_jadg33v wrote

Maybe listen to the podcast instead of offering a false dichotomy?

This lack of creativity is why we're trapped in doing the same thing over and over again despite getting increasingly worse results. Wouldn't it be great if there were other options besides murder and policing that is harmful to communities?

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OneFunkyPlatypus t1_jaf1xrw wrote

Oh fuck that. DC has what? 3 or 4 VI programs with millions in funding and guess what? They shoot each other So yes to other approaches BUT DONE THE RIGHT WAY. Not money pits for buddies. Actual pay for performance efforts with clear data feedback and willingness to chop it down if it sucks (like currently) You need carrots but you need stick too

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Ok_Jellyfish6145 t1_jaddske wrote

Maybe the community continues to have high murder rates because it consistently prioritizes #3 over #2

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DrunkWoodchuck t1_jaem1z8 wrote

Why would anyone need to prioritize one over the other? Just unfuck police immunity and you end up with an accountable police force that won’t traumatize the community they serve.

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overnighttoast t1_jadrorq wrote

Or! The community continues to have high murder rates because we continuously choose to use a system that by nature is reactive instead of proactive despite the numerous findings in literature that offer creative proactive approaches and solutions :)

And that doesnt even touch on the fact that to make matters worse, we allow the entity we've chosen for protection to traumatize community members. Trauma, we know, also impacts how folks learn to solve and deal with their problems, and most likely discourages the use of those entities in the rare moments where they could actually be helpful. So no, we do not consistently prioritize #3, perhaps if we did we would actually see homicides decline.

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Ok_Jellyfish6145 t1_jae0ovh wrote

Murders went down a ton due to police presence. People riot because of police misconduct so police are withdrawn as requested. Murders promptly surge. Simple as.

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overnighttoast t1_jae17tl wrote

Look, police have historically treated certain groups poorly, and weren't responding to calls for service in various neighborhoods WAY before police misconduct was part of the news stream. But whatever you need to tell yourself ig.

It's always wild to me how many uneducated people try to speak on criminal legal system topics.

−3

TonerLegend t1_jadvgw1 wrote

Does anyone know if the theory that hotter weather leads to more violence has been studied in abnormally warm winters, or is that just brutally hot summer days?

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Gent2022 t1_jadxuv4 wrote

At a guess, increase is linked to economic downturn, see 2008, financial crises it rose to 186 then fell off and didn’t reach that level until Covid hit.

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LeoMarius t1_jae5ucv wrote

Good thing DC watered down its criminal code.

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Loki-Don t1_jaemyrq wrote

“Muh it’s lower since the crack addict “mayor for Life” Marion Barry was in office so quit ur bitchin” lol…

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Exhausted_Human t1_jae1u3w wrote

Where is most of the homicides happening? I live at the far end of NW and have seen an increase in domestic disputes but not necessarily murders/gangs etc. Although a man was killed by an angry ex with her car running over him repeatedly a few months ago. I wonder if all of this is also due to rising costs of living, economic strife and people having post COVID fallout in relationships???

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dynospectrum7 t1_jaege6t wrote

No. It’s not. If you know about the people doing dirt, you will know why.

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Automatic-Annual-776 t1_jaeyhwm wrote

Because access to quality jobs has decreased and the cost of groceries / cootchie has inflated

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Grand-Admiral-Prawn t1_jadux56 wrote

person in meaningless email job who goes outside maybe once a week: lol if you're worried about this. you may as well put your damn klan hood on!!!

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NorseTikiBar t1_jacwvm5 wrote

"Up 40%" when we're not even two months into the year is a wildly disingenuous thing to say in a headline, but crime post trolls will eat it up.

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Reeetankiesbtfo t1_jacz6rn wrote

Up zero percent would still make us a far too violent city.

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NorseTikiBar t1_jad0ghb wrote

I'd imagine that by the end of the year, nationwide trends will still keep us barely in the top 20. But sure, let's pretend two months is predictive.

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Reeetankiesbtfo t1_jad2kc5 wrote

Im not sure how you can say we are only top 20 most violent city in the US like thats a good thing. Many of those cities are some of the most violent in the world…

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NorseTikiBar t1_jad3e12 wrote

And I'm not sure how you can try and claim that DC is so wildly dangerous when Baltimore is literally an hour away.

This is a nationwide trend, and yet some of y'all are so goddamned intent on trying to point the finger at any little thing that local government does when the reality is far more complicated.

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Reeetankiesbtfo t1_jad42vr wrote

The existence of something worse doesnt mean we aren’t also bad

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NorseTikiBar t1_jad52s4 wrote

And I wouldn't say that barely being in the top 20 in a nation with a boner for having as many guns as possible makes us "bad," or certainly not as bad as needing a bullshit sensationalized headline about the fact that we've had a whopping 10 more homicides than we did at this point last year.

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guy_incognito784 t1_jad1vky wrote

That’s valid. This time last year a lot of people were staying at home due to omicron.

More people out and about now. Plus the rise in juvenile crime and the fact that many students in cities have been testing far below their grade level would lead me to speculate having remote learning in cities weren’t great for teenagers in cities and we’re seeing the impacts of it now.

But I’m just a dumbass on Reddit so what do I know

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__main__py t1_jad5x4y wrote

> This time last year a lot of people were staying at home due to omicron

If I remember correctly, homicides were actually up pretty severely the first three or four months of 2022, and it was only a major drop later in the year that led to an overall decline. If that is the case, then this sharp rise in homicides is even more alarming.

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NorseTikiBar t1_jad469c wrote

I think I'm still willing to say that trends will even out as the year progresses and we'll end up with a lower number of homicides than 2022 (because right now we're talking about an increase from 25 to 35), but I would completely agree that remote learning meant a lot of at-risk kids got lost through the cracks and that we're going to be seeing a lot of trouble coming out of them as a result. That remains my biggest problem with a lot of cities' covid policies, and it's also unfortunately a situation where conservatives got to the right solution of opening schools earlier for all of the wrong reasons.

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Turbo2x t1_jae8n95 wrote

Are people really surprised that after >1 million excess deaths across the country and a mass trauma event, people are not doing well? I know redditors don't want to talk about solutions that don't involve a cop on every corner, but that's probably what we should be looking at.

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leantomorrow t1_jadf0az wrote

I mean, is it actually disingenuous? That’s the data as compared to the same time last year. It seems instead disingenuous to dismiss this data point because it’s not an ideal reflection of YoY.

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NorseTikiBar t1_jadmd0o wrote

It's ridiculously sensationalized to report it as such when we're talking about going from 25 murders to 35. That's like at the beginning of the baseball season, some players will have 1.000 and look like gods amongst men or .000 batting averages and look like AAA rejects. The stats aren't wrong, they're just lacking meaningful context.

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leantomorrow t1_jadoj2s wrote

Bro. You need to back up and look at your worldview a bit.

10 people more killed is the innocent loss of 10 human beings. It’s in no way sensationalized to make the statement this is 40% more compared to last year. In fact this should be published widely, vocally, and often. Beat it into the public consciousness. Explain why this is unacceptable.

It’s not fucking baseball. Goddamn. People in this subreddit are legitimately fucked in the head.

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NorseTikiBar t1_jadpcff wrote

lolwut

Do you know these people? Have you been crying at your desk all morning over the news that 10 more people died YTD compared to last year? Are you in the process of sending flowers to their grieving families?

Or are you just using them as an emotional cudgel to engage in some horseshit pearl-clutching? Because newsflash: understanding how stats works and giving a less emotionally charged example doesn't make me "fucked in the head," but you screeching about a number that lacks context sure as shit just might.

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leantomorrow t1_jadq484 wrote

You seem like a nice, well-adjusted human being. Good luck.

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NorseTikiBar t1_jadqm86 wrote

Best of luck in getting through the day without collapsing to the floor in hysterics over news that someone you don't know died today. I would think that the average person has pretty good odds on that not happening, but you're clearly not even average.

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dmpastuf t1_jadpxal wrote

“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.”

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dynospectrum7 t1_jaegt6b wrote

If it makes you feel better, Baltimore is trending lower in 2023 vs 2022, 2021, and 2020.

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Deanocracy t1_jaeak77 wrote

It can be distorted.

But its an increase on an increase during the first half of last year.

So a concerning trend

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