Highlights
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A recent study found that the risk of death or injury from firearms is greater for young black and Latino men living in certain zip codes than for U.S. soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Black Americans are 12 times as likely as white Americans to die from gun homicide.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former senior crime prevention and statistics specialist at the Ministry of Justice Clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former adjunct associate professor of criminology and public affairs at the University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the national media campaign “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime.” Successful media campaigns against crime produced by the state.
Thirty-five years leading award-winning (50+) public relations for state and national criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often focusing on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcast series. Produced a unique and emulated style of proactive government public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study – Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Media Success: Everything You Need to Survive Reporters and Your Organization‘ available from Amazon and other booksellers.
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Article
What is below comes from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. It reports known data from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics on rates of victimization by race and national origin, plus criminological literature on the income and age of victims.
Overall, there are no surprises beyond what we as a society routinely ignore or have come to accept: the fact that the risk of death or injury from firearms is more acute for young black and Latino men living in certain zip codes than for the USA soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We debate whether crime rates are rising or falling and delve into the difficulty of collecting and interpreting crime statistics, which seems pointless when it comes to murders and their consequences.
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, violent crime is up about 44 percent in 2022 and 2023, while others maintain that crime is significantly decreasing due to the use of crimes reported to law enforcement. It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of what we call crime goes unreported to law enforcement and is not compiled by the FBI.
However, the discussion seems pointless when you understand the homicide victimization rate among young black and Latino men living in certain zip codes. Although the number of homicides is numerically small compared to other forms of violent crime, it is clear that the discussion of homicide can destroy the reputation of cities, forcing people and businesses to leave the affected areas. According to Gallup and other sources, fear of crime is at record highs, and crime, especially violent crime, is one of voters’ top concerns.
For many of us who write about crime, it is the unfortunate acceptance of homicide rates among people living in mainly low-income areas of cities as business as usual. Whenever we turn on the local television news, there is the seemingly inevitable reporting of murders and other forms of violent crime that do not cause outrage. Society seems more concerned about shelter dogs not being adopted than about people being killed or injured.
There is a point where we need to understand that violence in cities can be of equal or greater importance than hurricanes or floods. Collectively, the homicide numbers far outweigh the impact of natural disasters, both numerically and emotionally.
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (lightly edited)
The US Commission on Civil Rights released the report, Federal efforts in examining racial and ethnic disparities among victims of violent crime. To understand federal efforts to evaluate racial disparities in crime victimization, the Commission examined what crime data show the disparate impact of violent victimization on minority communities. When we consider all forms of violent crime aggregated at the national level, there are no differences in the risk of victimization for white, black, and Latino people.
Crime victimization has far-reaching consequences for the victims, their families and friends, their communities and society at large. The number of victims of violent crime has fallen dramatically since its peak in the early 1990s. However, the country has recently experienced an increase in serious forms of violence. In 2020, homicide rates were 30 percent higher than the year before. During the same period, serious assaults, including non-fatal shootings, also increased.
While there is generally no difference in the risk of victimization based on race, there are differences among other demographics and among certain types of crimes. Black Americans are 12 times as likely as white Americans to die from gun homicide. The concentration of crime in certain areas has been linked to race, as today’s underserved neighborhoods are predominantly black or Latino. People living in households earning the lowest incomes are more likely to be victims than their higher-income counterparts, and young people are also more likely to be victims of crime.
A major barrier to examining victimization rates is that many crimes, even violent crimes, are not known to law enforcement authorities. In 2020, only 40 percent of violent victims
were reported to the police. Compensation and assistance programs are available for crime victims, but long-term research shows that these programs are underutilized, largely because victims are unaware of the programs and services available to them.
Racial disparities in homicide are especially pronounced in large metropolitan areas, where violent crime rates are highest. The concentration of crime in major cities is a consistent pattern in crime trends over time. Within cities, violent crime is concentrated in certain neighborhoods, street sections or blocks. Ruth Abaya, a pediatric emergency medicine physician and senior director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, explains: “In many places across the country, community violence is concentrated, cyclical and interconnected, creating cycles of harm and trauma that often have consequences for several people. generations.”
Hyperlocal concentration of crime is not a new phenomenon. In their fundamental research on the relationship between crime and place, influential American criminologists Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay show that crime rates in neighborhoods remain stable over time, even as the demographic composition of residents changes. They argue that structural conditions, such as physical decline and high population turnover, create the conditions for crime. This finding is critical for identifying racial disparities in crime victimization because it shows that the structure of high-crime neighborhoods, rather than factors related to the race of their residents, allows crime to flourish.
A recent study found that the risk of death or injury from firearms is greater for young black and Latino men living in certain zip codes than for U.S. soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Data shows that victims of violent crime are four times more likely to be revictimized. Furthermore, both income and age predict victimization. People living in households earning the lowest incomes (i.e., less than $25,000) are more likely to become victims than their higher-income counterparts.
Adolescents and young adults are also disproportionately victims of violent crime, regardless of their geographic location. The relationship between age and involvement in crime, as both perpetrator and victim, is one of the most enduring patterns in crime. There are no overall gender differences in violent victimization. However, there are gender differences in experiencing certain forms of violence. Men are more likely than women to be victims of murder. However, when women are murdered, they are five times more likely than men to be murdered by an intimate partner.
Regardless of the severity of the crime, most victims of violent crimes know the perpetrator.
Data shows that someone who commits a violent crime is statistically at greater risk of becoming a victim of a subsequent violent crime. Victims of violent crimes are also more likely than others to participate in violence. Too often, this overlap between victim and perpetrator is ignored because it complicates the false narrative of the “good victim/bad perpetrator” dichotomy.
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