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Comment by le_epic_throw | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but I haven't seen any evidence for a "crime wave" in 2020-2021. FBI stats show a slight uptick in violent crimes. These rates haven't been seen since... gasp ... 2017.

If police-civilian interactions really decreased 80% (as quoted in the article), and in exchange violent crime only raised 5.6% [0], personally that shows even dramatic reductions in police presence don't lead to complete "anarchy".

I fear, given the increasing discussion around this crime """wave""", that some disastrous "tough on crime" policies are going to be (re)introduced in the coming years.

[0]https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/cri...

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That data doesn't show 2021. It only goes up to 2020.

You don't have to try very hard to find data that supports a massive uptick in violent crime in 2021. Dozens of cities have reported all-time-high murder rates. Even cities like Philedelphia, which was already pretty high to begin with.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/us-murder-ra...

I don't think it is due to defunding the police, however. As has been pointed out, murder rates are up in large cities, and small towns, both Red and Blue.

There is a simple explanation: Nobody is getting incarcerated, because of COVID requirements in jails.

In my hometown, which is not a major metro area, a friend of mine (who lives inside city limits) even had a cow stolen. When discussing this with the police officer, the officer's remark was "crime is up over a thousand percent" because "they can't incarcerate anyone" because of covid. They would book people, but the jails are at max capacity, so they don't even do time. They get "booked and released".

https://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-the-covid-19-crisis-str...

Also, COVID as an ongoing thing isn't great for anybody's mental health in general. I suspect there's some similarity to how crime rates go up during heat waves.

> Dozens of cities have reported all-time-high murder rates

I call bullshit if you're meaning actual cities aka 500k+ people and using rate to mean rate.

We're not even remotely close to the 90s.

You are correct. Murders in most cities matched or exceeded their previous records from the 80s or 90s. But the population in most of those cities is almost double.

The population of Portland has increased by 92% since 1987, but the murders just passed the 1987 level.

All that said, murder *rates* across the U.S. have jumped significantly vs 2019. Though they're not yet to their highs from the early 90s.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/12-major-us-cities-top-annual-homi...

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