Authors
Philip J Cook, Jens Ludwig
Publication date
2022/5
Journal
Vital City
Volume
1
Description
In 2020, there were 375,800 fewer serious crimes in America compared to 2019, about a 5 percent decline. Amidst the overall decline, one specific type of crime ran counter to trend: murders, most of which are committed with guns, were up by 5,000, a rise of nearly 30 percent.
How should we think about these statistics? Should we be happy that serious crime is down or concerned about the increase in homicides? We argue this trend is actually bad news overall. As Berkeley criminologists Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins have noted, crime is not the problem—gun violence is. This distinction has a number of implications for how we think about criminal justice.
Total citations
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