Murder rate is reason we need police reforms

More than 400 Houstonians were murdered in 2020 — a 40 percent yearover-year spike. In response, city leaders and advocates have been searching for solutions to slow this sudden growth in violent crime. They’re not alone. Cities across the nation are facing a similar challenge.

Big-city murder rates grew by 30 percent last year compared to the year before — likely the largest single-year increase since the nation started keeping official crime statistics.

This outcome was unfortunately foreseeable. In July, we wrote an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle urging policymakers not to become complacent about the sudden dip in nonviolent crime caused by lockdowns around the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, our follow-up research, supported by Arnold Ventures and the Council on Criminal Justice, has documented an unprecedented nationwide jump in homicide. Murders rose in 29 of the 34 cities we examined. As hundreds of thousands died from a pandemic, another national tragedy ravaged the nation — in just the cities we studied, an additional 1,268 people lost their lives to violence in 2020 compared to the year before.

But as with the pandemic, reactions to this crime wave that are grounded in fear or panic will only be counterproductive. Despite the dramatic jump in last year’s homicide rate, violent crime remains below the historical peaks of the 1990s. The average homicide rate last year in the 34 cities we studied was 11 per 100,000 population in 2020, compared with 19 per 100,000 residents in those cities in 1995.

Nor is it true that the nation faces a rising tide of lawlessness. Property and drug crimes actually declined significantly last year. Not all violent offenses increased — many cities saw rapes and assaults falls. Homicides remained clustered among small groups of people and in a small number of places. As it does every year, the burden of violent death fell heaviest on disadvantaged and disenfranchised young men who have few options or hope for their lives.

So, what is actually going on? While we don’t have definitive answers to why homicide rose in 2020, it is likely that the overlapping crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest around police violence and other factors all combined to create a “perfect storm” of circumstances pushing murder rates to record levels among these young men in the most disadvantaged communities.

Each one of these issues poses massive policy challenges in its own right. But the interplay is a daunting challenge for policymakers. Despite this, leaders at all levels of government can and should respond with bold action.

First, the pandemic has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable among us while straining the institutions charged with keeping the peace — police, hospitals and community-based groups, to name a few. Successful violence reduction efforts depend heavily on proactive outreach to at-risk people and places. This outreach has been largely foreclosed by the ongoing risk of infection. Zoom meetings are simply no substitute, so subduing the coronavirus pandemic remains crucial for reducing homicide and other forms of violence.

Second, the precipitous rise in homicide largely coincided with the emergence of mass protests after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. The homicide rate following this tragedy was higher than during any other period in 2020. Many scholars believe that we’re seeing a dynamic similar to the increase in murders that occurred after police killed Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. This “Ferguson Effect” is likely a combination of “de-policing” (police pullbacks in response to pressure and criticism) and “de-legitimizing” (residents pulling back from reporting crimes and cooperating with police due to increased mistrust).

Rather than play the blame game, our nation’s leaders must engage earnestly with the crisis in policing. Some pundits and politicians have argued that community safety and calls for policing reform are in tension with one another. They are not. In fact, the two are inexorably intertwined. Sustained reductions in violence depend heavily on improving the fairness and legitimacy of the justice system. Translating calls for policing reform into workable policy will not be easy, but it is essential for sustained improvements in both safety and justice for everyone.

Finally, our elected leaders cannot wait for the pandemic to pass or for reforms to be made before they respond to these record-breaking rates of homicide. During a normal year, violent street crime could be curbed through a combination of well-tested, programmatic efforts by law enforcement, violence intervention and community health organizations. Now these strategies must be “COVID-proofed” by providing police, public health and community-based workers with prioritized access to vaccines and personal protective equipment, along with the necessary health care.

More research is needed to fully understand what is driving this spike in homicides. But that is no reason to hesitate. Policymakers have tools at their disposal to help bring these numbers back down to earth. With so many lives at stake, the time to act is now.

Abt is director of the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice and author of “Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence — and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets.” Rosenfeld is professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a former president of the American Society of Criminology.