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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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__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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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!!!

−24

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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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

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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LeoMarius t1_jae5ucv wrote

Good thing DC watered down its criminal code.

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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.

−1

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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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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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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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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