Kevin Johnson
Copyright 2005 Gannett Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON -- Murder increased by 2.1% across the USA during the first six months of 2005 and was on track to nearly reverse a 2.4% decline recorded last year, according to preliminary FBI figures released Monday.
The largest spikes over the same period in 2004 occurred in some of the nation’s smallest cities -- population 10,000 or less -- where homicides were up 13%, the report found.
Murder and robbery were the only major crimes to increase in the preliminary review of 10,374 agencies. The review showed overall decreases in violent and property crimes, continuing a decade-long decline.
Crime analysts on Monday were struggling to explain the sudden spike in small-town homicide.
The FBI could not immediately provide a breakdown of the locations where murders were rising, leading some experts to suggest that the ills that have long plagued urban America -- gangs, drugs and the proliferation of weapons -- were taking root in the suburbs.
“Unfortunately, it looks like the small towns are playing catch-up with the big cities,” said Jack Levin, a professor at the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University in Boston. “What starts in Detroit or Chicago eventually becomes a problem in the suburbs. Crime moves where the population goes.”
Mary Ann Viverette, police chief in Gaithersburg, Md., and president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said that police in small and large cities are seeing people increasingly respond with violence to even minimal provocation. “Because of a lack of resources in some of these places, police are often forced to react to incidents rather than be in a position to disrupt them,” Viverette said.
Explaining fluctuations in crime, especially violent crime, has proved to be difficult. While murder increased 13% in towns with fewer than 10,000 people, murder declined 16% in towns only slightly larger, between 10,000 and 24,999 residents.
Murders declined last year after three successive years of increases. The increases had been blamed on a resurgence in gang activity and illegal drug sales, combined with a faltering economy.
This year, Charlotte police, for example, are at a loss to explain a jump in killings. Last week, the murder count stood at 83, compared with 56 at the same time last year.
Killings related to domestic violence, gang activity and robberies are all up this year.
“It’s very difficult to explain,” said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department spokesman Keith Bridges. “There are increases all across the board.”
December 20, 2005