A new study reveals that nearly 70 percent of all the murders in the United States take place in 5 percent of the nation’s counties – and more than half of all homicides occur in just 2 percent of its counties.
In 2014 – the most recent year that a county level breakdown is available – 54 percent of counties (with 11 percent of the population) have no murders,” CPRC reported. “Sixty-nine percent of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20 percent of the population. These counties account for only 4 percent of all murders in the country
Low population density, majority white counties don’t have many murders. Yet rural households tend to have guns at much higher rates than urban households. It’s almost like gun ownership isn’t the important factor for the expected number of murders in an area.
The worst 1 percent of counties have 19 percent of the population and 37 percent of the murders,” the nonprofit research organization divulged. “The worst 5 percent of counties contain 47 percent of the population and account for 68 percent of murders.
Researchers also stressed that isolating the small handful of the most homicidal counties in the U.S. would make the country appear a much safer place to live – noting that the only the counties in the top four percent have 16 or more murders.
“If the 1 percent of the counties with the worst number of murders somehow were to become a separate country, the murder rate in the rest of the U.S. would have been only 3.4 in 2014,” CPRC explained. “Removing the worst 2 percent or 5 percent would have reduced the US rate to just 3.06 or 2.56 per 100,000, respectively.”
Those conducting the study pointed out that even in the counties with the highest number of homicides – such as Los Angeles County in California, which registered the highest in 2014 at 526 – the murders are predominantly concentrated to small and distinct areas, leaving most cities within the area virtually murder-free.
Hmm. Small and distinct areas contribute most of the murders in this country. If we were to take those areas and kick them out of the US, our problem with murders would almost go away completely.
- Chicago, Illinois: 85.5 percent from 2000–2015 … up from 72.9 percent between 1990 and 1999
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 82.6 percent from 2000–2015 … up from 76.7 percent between 1990 and 1999
- Houston, Texas: 74.0 percent from 2000–2015 … down from 75.9 percent between 1990 and 1999
- Los Angeles, California: 75.2 percent from 2000–2015 … down from 79.1 percent between 1990 and 1999
- New York City, New York: 60.1 percent from 2000–2015 … down from 71.5 percent between 1990 and 1999
According to the report, the following cities were the 30 most murderous cities.
city | %white | %black | %hispanic |
East St. Louis, IL | 1.9 | 95.3 | .6 |
Chester, PA | 15.8 | 64.7 | 14.1 |
St. Louis, MO | 15.1 | 70.4 | 11.6 |
Baltimore, MD | 28.2 | 61.2 | 4.8 |
Petersberg, VA | 15.6 | 76.7 | 4.2 |
Flint, MI | 37.1 | 54.8 | 3.7 |
Detroit, MI | 9.5 | 79.2 | 8 |
New Orleans, LA | 31.2 | 58.4 | 5.6 |
Camden, NJ | 4.4 | 42.2 | 49.1 |
Wilmington, DE | 28.6 | 54.8 | 11.6 |
Birmingham, AL | 22 | 72.3 | 3.5 |
Newark, NJ | 10.8 | 48.6 | 35.6 |
Monroe, LA | 31.8 | 64.4 | 1.5 |
Portsmouth, VA | 39.5 | 52.1 | 3.7 |
Cleveland, OH | 34.5 | 50.1 | 10.5 |
Jackson, MS | 17,4 | 79.9 | 1.5 |
Riviera Beach, FL | 20.7 | 67.4 | 7 |
Youngstown, OH | 42.3 | 42.9 | 10.3 |
Baton Rouge, LA | 36.4 | 55.1 | 3.2 |
Bessemer, AL | 24.1 | 70 | 3.9 |
Banning, CA | 43.5 | 7.3 | 41.2 |
Hartford, CT | 15.4 | 35.2 | 44.2 |
Myrtle Beach, SC | 69.9 | 13.9 | 11.5 |
Salinas, CA | 14.8 | 1.3 | 75.9 |
Goldsboro, NC | 35.9 | 53.6 | 5.7 |
Desert Hot Springs, CA | 30.7 | 6.2 | 57.4 |
East Chicago, IN | 9.4 | 39.9 | 50.1 |
Milwaukee, WI | 36.1 | 38.5 | 18.4 |
Washington, DC | 36 | 46.5 | 10.6 |
Gary, IN | 10.7 | 81.4 | 5.8 |
Out of the 30 most murderous cities in the US, 19 have a true majority black population. Blacks are far and away much more dangerous and violent than pretty much every other race. They practically need a category of their own when considering racial differences.
Three of the most murderous cities have a true majority of Hispanics. As you may know, “hispanic” isn’t a racial category and often isn’t very useful in determining the characteristic of a group if the hispanics have very different geographical origins. Most of the dangerous cities in which hispanic demographics are important are in California, which suggests a Mexican origin and ethnicity. The one possible exception to this is Hartford, CT.
There is only one city among the most murderous that has a true majority white population. This is myrtle beach. It is hard to say why this is, but I do note that the main reason this city exists is beach tourism. Touristy areas attract mafia types and also people tend to drink too much when on vacation. Lots of tourists also tend to attract a lot of parasites trying to take advantage of them as well. How much of this murder rate results from visitors killing each other rather than actual residents who live here?
The remaining most murderous cities do not have a true majority of any race. However, adding the two most numerous races would give you a very strong plurality in all cases. Of the most murderous cities in this category, 4 had a large plurality of blacks and hispanics. 2 had a plurality of blacks and whites, 1 had a plurality of white and hispanic. For one of the black/white pluralities (Milwaukee), there was a significant number of hispanics at 18% as well, however.
So, of the 30 most murderous cities, 25 had substantially large black populations.
This stuff is obvious, thus boring. And you are not good at propaganda. Can you write more about facts and ideas that are not already widely known among reactionaries? Please, cater to smarter audience.
Same goes for pizza. I don’t endorse this stuff, and yearn for the day of the rope. But there might be more to it. I’d guess that it has been going for centuries. Maybe human societies just don’t scale well. Is there any big society without this problem? Why does this institution exist? Is it used to the benefit or harm of the host society?
If we were way more domesticated, there is a chance that this phenomenon would not have occurred. Yet, as White, you might prefer criminal societies over domesticated.
It may be obvious to you, but not everyone is aware of this. I did provide a link to “the color of crime” which gives substantially more detail for those who want it. In addition, new data, like this, comes in every couple of years and it needs to be compared to see if there were any large changes.
It’s also possible that the Myrtle Beach statistics are measuring the wrong thing. It’s not the make-up of the permanent population of a place that matters: it’s the make-up of whoever’s doing the killing. It’s quite possible that the murders are being committed by visitors to Myrtle Beach, rather than by permanent residents. We can’t extrapolate from the census demographics: we’d need to see the demographics of the crimes themselves.