U.S. Homicide Rates: Trends and Changes Over a Decade
This paper examines whether homicide and violent crime rates in the United States increased or decreased over a ten-year period. Drawing on a 2015 Congressional Research Service report, it reviews long-term downward trends in violent crime alongside short-term upticks observed in select cities. The paper explores proposed explanations for localized crime increases, including the "Ferguson effect," gang violence, drug-turf disputes, and crises of police legitimacy. It also evaluates the validity of the underlying research data and discusses how statistical measures such as percentage change can be misleading depending on the time period and baseline used.
- Introduction: Long-Term Trends in U.S. Violent Crime: National violent crime and homicide rates over time
- Explanations for Localized Crime Increases: Ferguson effect, gang wars, and police legitimacy
- Validity of the Research: Data sources and limitations of the study
- Why Homicide Rates Change Over Time: Legislative, policing, and historical factors
- Understanding Crime Statistics and Percentage Change: How baselines distort percentage-change crime measures
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its claims in a specific, cited government source (Congressional Research Service), lending credibility to the analysis.
- Contextualizes short-term crime upticks against long-term downward trends, preventing misleading interpretations of recent data spikes.
- Illustrates the pitfalls of percentage-change statistics with clear numerical examples that make an abstract concept concrete and accessible.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of critical data interpretation — showing how the same raw statistics can yield very different conclusions depending on baseline, time period, and measurement method. By walking through specific numerical scenarios, the author effectively teaches the reader to read crime data skeptically and in context.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a statistical overview of national crime trends, then identifies proposed causes for localized increases, assesses the validity of the source data, and closes with a methodological discussion of how percentage-change measures can distort perception. This four-part flow moves from what the data shows, to why it may be happening, to how reliable the data is, to how it should be interpreted — a logical and pedagogically sound sequence.
Introduction: Long-Term Trends in U.S. Violent Crime
Rates of murders and violent crimes witnessed a downward trend for over twenty years. The rate of violent crimes in the United States was at its lowest point in 2014 since 1970; moreover, the homicide rate for 2014 was at its lowest since 1960. Despite these rates showing an increase in 2015, the murder rate would only reach its post-1960 maximum of 10.2 homicides per 100,000 individuals if it increased by 5.7 murders per 100,000 individuals. Meanwhile, the violent crime rate would only reach its post-1960 maximum of 758.2 violent crimes per 100,000 individuals (recorded in 1991) if it increased by 392.7 crimes of violence per 100,000 individuals (James, 2015). Both of these hypothetical increases would represent more than a twofold rise over the 2014 rates of violent crime and homicide.
There are numerous short-term factors capable of explaining reported violent crime upticks across the United States: yearly crime rate variations are subject to random fluctuations; a number of cities have witnessed crime rate increases from their respective historically low crime levels; crime rates can shift seasonally; and the percentage of reported-crime variation represents a relative, magnitude-sensitive measure (James, 2015).
Explanations for Localized Crime Increases
Though the time to definitively conclude whether or not there is an upsurge in violent crimes may not yet have arrived, many commentators have wondered why increases in such crimes are seen in some cities. Proposed explanations include the "Ferguson effect" — the idea that, following a series of high-profile deaths involving police officers, police forces become less willing to proactively carry out policing activities, thus emboldening criminals. Increased violence may also stem from gang wars for drug-turf control or from released offenders committing new offenses. Additionally, law enforcers face a legitimacy challenge in certain communities whose residents believe the police are not treating them fairly; this can lead individuals to attempt to resolve conflicts themselves, without involving law enforcement (James, 2015).
Validity of the Research
This work is valid, as homicide research in sixty of the most heavily populated American cities was gathered from a variety of sources. Study data was obtained from media reports, police department websites, state Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) programs, and the Major Cities Chiefs Association survey. Researchers had to directly contact police departments in some cases. Further, the data provided was sometimes inconsistent. A few cities could only report homicide data as of May 31, 2015, while others could provide data as of September 7, 2015 (James, 2015).
References
James, N. (2015). Is violent crime in the United States increasing? Congressional Research Service, 2–10.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.