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Comment by bryanrasmussen | Hacker News Reader

well most murder is of people you know, and people have been spending a lot of time with people they know.

There has been a lot of concern about how domestic violence may be worsened by not being able to go outside.

The causes are likely many issues interacting in a complex manner. That said, yes, obviously locking people in a house with the person most likely to murder them, while simultaneously putting enormous financial strain on that household, is very likely a contributing factor. I don't think anyone is arguing that point.

If this was the cause then murder in, say, the UK would also rise and it hasn't.

maybe it's easier to kill someone when you get mad at them in the U.S than in other countries because guns?

Or, possibly police are hesitant to do their work, and criminals are feeling emboldened.

Unlikely. Police mostly deal with consequences, they can’t stop everyone from doing what they have intended to do. And why would police suddenly become hesitant?

It is more likely that it is caused by pandemic situation where many people have lost jobs and homes. Also social conditions changed. All of that could attribute to agressive and reckless behaviour.

The spikes coincide with blm/anti cop riots, not with the lockdowns.

This hypothesis is called the Ferguson effect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_effect#:~:text=The%....

You can imagine that people in Ferguson might be unwilling to report petty crime until the police can’t do much about it as the punishment for stealing a low value item can be summary execution and you might not want that for the kid down the street who has gone off the rails a bit. So that probably affects the clear up rate.

Such absurd hyperbole.

Don’t physically fight with police, and you’ll be fine. Simple as that.

There are countless cases of police (especially in the US) executing entirely compliant and peaceful people.

Countless is also entirely hyperbolic. Approximately 1000 people were killed by police in 2019, and the vast majority were violently resisting.

Even more absurd hyperbole. Countless? Executing? So many that it is impossible to count?

Link me some examples. There are so many that it cannot be counted, and so surely it should be easy for you to send me a dozen examples.

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