2016 Number of Homicides in Detroit: 302

[ABetterDetroit]

It's abhorrent. Sickening. A continuous Disaster.

1 for every 2300 citizens in one year's time. How can a child live, learn, have hope for the future in that environment? How can businesses grow or even exist with that kind of fear?

We are supposed to be one of the most advanced society's on earth. That figure proves we are not.

Discuss.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...ides/96134646/

[Brich]

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[mwilbert]

It's abhorrent. Sickening. A continuous Disaster.

1 for every 2300 citizens in one year's time. How can a child live, learn, have hope for the future in that environment? How can businesses grow or even exist with that kind of fear?

We are supposed to be one of the most advanced society's on earth. That figure proves we are not.

Discuss.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...ides/96134646/

Without trying to minimize the fact that 300 homicides is a lot of homicides, and that they represent both a societal failure and a tragedy for many specific people, it is perfectly possible to live and even thrive in such an environment.

Homicides are not evenly distributed. There are subgroups of people with very high chances of being killed, which keeps the number of homicides high, but the majority of people in the city have a minimal chance of being killed. It is fairly easy for those people to go about their lives more-or-less unaffected.

Most businesses don't really have any reason to expect that their employees will be killed either. Certainly there are well-publicized cases where that does happen, especially where employees are serving the general public in insecure locations, but it isn't a common thing that you would expect to substantially affect the ability of most businesses to function.

Murder gets a lot of publicity because it is tends to be reported, is relatively unambiguous, and therefore is easy to count, but my impression is that what really causes most people and businesses problems with being in the city is the larger number of lesser but still serious crimes, like burglary, car theft, and armed robbery, which while still far too common, fortunately mostly seem to be falling.

[renf]

It is tragic to realize that 302 were killed in Detroit last year. There is a different way to view these homicides. Killings in Detroit peaked in 1989 when 686 were killed, a homicide rate of 63 per 100,000. The homicide rate in 2016 for Detroit was 45 per 100,000 so the rate is very high but has fallen considerably in 27 years.

El Paso is a city similar to Detroit in some ways. It is a border town and a little bit larger than Detroit in population size. In 2015, there were 17 homicides in El Paso for a rate
of 2.5 per 100,000 - a rate about 95% lower than the homicide rate in Detroit.

[Meddle]

300 seems pretty low by comparison. Wasn't the number closer to 800 at one time?

[belleislerunner]

Chicago had 762 murders last year and an even small footprint [[land wise) area for the murders to occur. Most people still feel safe visiting/moving to Chicago.

Detroit has a larger land mass [[areas where murders could happen) and 60% less murders than Chicago last year.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/us/chi...ide/index.html

[Bham1982]

Chicago had 762 murders last year and an even small footprint [[land wise) area for the murders to occur. Most people still feel safe visiting/moving to Chicago.

Detroit has a larger land mass [[areas where murders could happen) and 60% less murders than Chicago last year.

Detroit has a significantly smaller land mass than Chicago, not that it matters.

What matters is population, and Chicago has 4x the population of Detroit, so generally is expected to have more murders.

And I would disagree that "most people feel safe visiting/moving to Chicago". There has been huge negative coverage of their out-of-control murder epidemic, and much of the city is a no-go zone.

[Meddle]

But Detroit probably has a much larger 'nobody there' zone, so if you broke it down to occupied land area ....

[Meddle]

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime...-Michigan.html

If those numbers are correct, they're fairly consistent since 2002 and down quite a bit in recent years.

[Canadian Visitor]

For the sake of comparison.

Toronto had its worst year for homicides in awhile, with a 2016 total of 69.

Population: 2,900,000

Most years the number is in the 50s

[Bham1982]

For the sake of comparison.

Toronto had its worst year for homicides in awhile, with a 2016 total of 69.

Population: 2,900,000

Most years the number is in the 50s

Doesn't make much sense to compare murder rates between American and and Canadian cities, though. Crime rates, OK, but not murder rates.

The vast majority of big-city murders are within the African American community, which obviously doesn't exist in Canada. And Canada actually has reasonable gun laws.

[Bham1982]

But Detroit probably has a much larger 'nobody there' zone, so if you broke it down to occupied land area ....

You mean abandoned ghettohoods? I would agree, but those generally aren't the neighborhoods with the murders.

Murders tend to be in occupied neighborhoods. You need people. Most dangerous Detroit neighborhood in recent years has been far NE Detroit, which actually grew in population until recently, and has limited abandonment. Totally bombed-out areas have few people and less crime.

[getmoore]

Based on this analysis we didn't do that bad compared to 2015. A lot of major cities saw bigger increases in murders last year including Chicago which almost doubled!!
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysi...dated-analysis

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Based on this analysis we didn't do that bad compared to 2015. A lot of major cities saw bigger increases in murders last year including Chicago which almost doubled!!
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysi...dated-analysis

Chicago is on another planet, as far as murder is concerned.

[Johnnny5]

Based on this analysis we didn't do that bad compared to 2015. A lot of major cities saw bigger increases in murders last year including Chicago which almost doubled!!
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysi...dated-analysis

The sad part is that the only way to say "We didn't do that bad" is to compare Detroit's murder numbers to it's abysmal numbers from the year before. The violence in Chicago has been national news all year, but the reality is that even after accounting for that increase Detroit still has a murder rate that is just about twice that of the Windy City.

[Mind field]

Thankfully Detroit didn't experience the significant increase in homicides that other cities saw in 2016. Still 302 is shockingly high for a supposed first world country. Yes, I'm well aware of demographics and all the other issues that contribute to it, but it still remains [[as it should) a terrible and outrageous situation.

[getmoore]

My point exactly.

Thankfully Detroit didn't experience the significant increase in homicides that other cities saw in 2016. Still 302 is shockingly high for a supposed first world country. Yes, I'm well aware of demographics and all the other issues that contribute to it, but it still remains [[as it should) a terrible and outrageous situation.

[canuck]

Doesn't make much sense to compare murder rates between American and and Canadian cities, though. Crime rates, OK, but not murder rates.

The vast majority of big-city murders are within the African American community, which obviously doesn't exist in Canada. And Canada actually has reasonable gun laws.

Montreal had higher murder rates in the seventies and eighties and the stats are at the lowest point ever; 24 for 2016 for an island population of 1,9 million.

In 1975 the city alone before amalgamation of police and emergency services had 115 murders for a much smaller population, maybe 1,2 million then.

Like Toronto, Montreal has an important black community mostly from Haitian and Carribean origin. A lot of gang activity occurs in certain neighborhoods but generally, you are safe anywhere at almost anytime.

One third of the murders in 2016 here were mob related because the old Sicilian clan is being purged and there is a power vacuum now.

Some Canadian cities like Winnipeg and Edmonton have higher murder rates due in part to the crazy drug scene in those places. Montreal has experienced very little crystal meth and fentanyl related problems because it is a major port of entry to heroin and cocaine. Crack and heroin are good enough quality that the need for unknown substitutes is absent. A lot of violence and overdosing emanates from that. Vancouver had 622 overdose deaths in the first ten months, 60% due to fentanyl.

[renf]

There were an exceptionally large number of homicides in Chicago in 2016 but that city still has a very much lower homicide rate than does Detroit.

City Homicides Homicides per 100,000 Residents
Chicago 762 28 per 100,000
Detroit 302 45
New York 335 4

What may be done to achieve a very much lower homicide rate in Detroit?

[Bobl]

And across the river, Windsor has four or less most years.

[Mind field]

There were an exceptionally large number of homicides in Chicago in 2016 but that city still has a very much lower homicide rate than does Detroit.

City Homicides Homicides per 100,000 Residents
Chicago 762 28 per 100,000
Detroit 302 45
New York 335 4

What may be done to achieve a very much lower homicide rate in Detroit?

Annex Oakland County. Or become the new financial capital of the world.

[Canadian Visitor]

There were an exceptionally large number of homicides in Chicago in 2016 but that city still has a very much lower homicide rate than does Detroit.

City Homicides Homicides per 100,000 Residents
Chicago 762 28 per 100,000
Detroit 302 45
New York 335 4

What may be done to achieve a very much lower homicide rate in Detroit?

Toronto 2.3 homicides per 100000.

Now, on to your question.

It seems to me that if one makes a comparison between one place and another, and says "I like that result better", it then follows that you would look at what that place does differently.

For the moment, keeping the comparison within the US, we would find that 70% of the 'safest' cities in the US. are in the west, with the largest number in California.

This was not always the case. What's changed?

Gun control is definitely one part of the answer.

California's laws are nearly as tough as Canada's, and that is mostly a function of changes over the last 2 decades or so.

But it surely does not account for all, and perhaps not a majority of the difference.

The vast majority of high-violence urban areas in the US also have extreme poverty, high unemployment etc.

As noted elsewhere in this thread, that violence is almost always disproportionate to the poorest parts of town.

In a California that has both had a broadly prospering economy, but also one which has shared more of that wealth in higher minimum wages, paid sick days, family leave etc. There is simply less 'extreme' poverty.

Of course, it still exists, as does violent crime.

But there is little question of correlation.

When people have hope; and when they have something to lose, crime declines.

****

Detroit, fortunately is beginning to show signs of economic recovery. It is still nascent, and far from evenly spread.

But it is a start.

Fostering that growth, and connecting people in lower income areas to it, through quality mass transit is fundamental to lowering crime over time.

So is raising up the quality of life for those struggling to get by. Michigan has among the lowest minimum wages outside of the US south, and no paid sick days.

Inject hope and opportunity into people and neighbourhoods and good things will follow.

Add proper gun control and accelerate that change.

I don't know how 'safe' all of Detroit can be in the near term.

But I would think halving the violent crime rate should be very do-able.

L.A has seen a 75% or more reduction in homicides from peak-levels a few decades back.

It took 20 or more years to achieve that. But they did; Detroit can too.

[MSUguy]

If there is a bright spot, it's that there were 70 fewer shootings. But with nore 7 deaths seems people were particularly unlucky this year.

[Meddle]

But if you look at the link above, you'll see it's down by 100 or more from just a few years ago.

[Meddle]

That's what I mean though. Eliminate the vacant blocks [[and blocks and blocks and blocks) and go only by occupied space. What kill rate do you get per square mile? Isn't something like half of the residential square mileage vacant now? I know entire sections of once densely populated areas are.