Homicides spiked to record high in 2020, FBI says
The coronavirus cut down swaths of people in the United States in 2020, but a record number of homicides rounded out one of the country’s deadliest years.
More people were listed as victims of homicide — 21,570 — than in any year since national recordkeeping began in 1960.
The number of deaths classified as homicide rose by 29.4 percent in 2020, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, or UCR, released on Monday. The 2020 tally marked an increase of 4,901 from 2019.
The rate of violent crime in the US rose 5.6 percent last year compared with the previous year, while crimes related to property fell 8.1 percent, the report said.
“The rise in homicides coincided with the pandemic last summer, and also the outbreak of widespread protests against police violence after George Floyd was murdered ... neither of which was anticipated,” Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told The Wall Street Journal.
Some politicians and law-enforcement officials have said that a police pullback has been a factor in increased crime in cities such as Portland, Oregon. The city of around 653,000 has seen a large rise in the number of homicides, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Also mentioned was stress brought on by pandemic-related lockdowns and job losses, along with disruptions to the court system.
On the positive side, crimes such as burglary and theft decreased, and the number of robberies fell by 9.3 percent.
The decline in burglaries was likely a result of more people working from home during the pandemic, making their homes less of a mark for break-ins. And with fewer people out and about in cities, would-be robbers had fewer targets.
In 2020, there were an estimated 1.28 million violent crimes in the US. The estimated number of rapes decreased 12 percent, while the estimated number of aggravated assault offenses rose 12.1 percent, the FBI said.
Nationwide, there were more than 6.45 million property crimes. The number of burglaries dropped 7.4 percent, with larceny-thefts down 10.6 percent. But thefts of motor vehicles rose 11.8 percent.
Major cities such as New York, Chicago and New Orleans, Louisiana, did not submit their data from last year.
The report revealed that 77 percent of the murders reported last year were committed with firearms. The data also show that the gun crimes behind much of the increase were carried out by a relatively small number of people in communities where retaliatory shootings are more common.
Most homicide victims and offenders were aged between 20 and 29, and homicides began to escalate in the summer of 2020, the report said.
A report earlier this year found that gun sales hit a record level in 2020, with nearly 23 million firearms bought legally, up 65 percent from 2019.