Violent crime up in Ohio as well as US

WASHINGTON — Violent crime in America rose for the second straight year in 2016, driven by a spike in killings in some major cities, but still remained near historically low levels, according to FBI data released Monday.

The Trump administration seized on the figures as proof that the nation is in the midst of a dangerous crime wave that warrants a return to tougher tactics like more arrests and harsher punishments for drug criminals. But criminologists cautioned the new numbers may not indicate the start of a long-term trend, noting that violent-crime rates remain well below where they were a quarter-century ago.

Still, the FBI said it was the first time that violent crime rose in consecutive years in more than a decade.

Violent crimes such as shootings and robberies rose 4.1 percent in 2016 from the year before, with homicides climbing 8.6 percent, according to the figures. Violence increased 3.9 percent in 2015, while killings jumped by more than 10 percent.

Overall, violent crime in Ohio increased 1.5 percent in 2016 compared with the year before, but the homicide rate statewide spiked 25.3 percent, according to the figures.

In Columbus, violent crime as a whole decreased by 2.8 percent. Homicides, however, climbed by 18.2 percent.

In some instances, the FBI figures do not reflect reports from local law enforcement. For example, Columbus police reported 106 homicides in 2016, but the FBI listed 91 killings in the city that year. The same is true for 2015, when Columbus police reported 99 homicides and the FBI listed 77.

Chicago, singled out by the White House for its surge in shootings, saw a 60 percent jump in killings from 2015, accounting for more than 20 percent of the nation’s increase in murders, according to an analysis of the FBI data by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.