Murders in the US are increasingly concentrated in densely populated urban centers in just a handful of counties, according to a recently released report.
About 73% of all murders in the US occurred in just 5% of counties, while 52% of all counties reported no murders, according to a study by the Center for Crime Prevention Research. published this week and provided to Fox News Digital.
“Murders in the United States occur in very small areas, and that concentration has increased since 2014,” the study stated. “The concentration in 2020 is now higher than in 2010.”
The report comes as a wave of violent crime that spiked in 2020 is still raging in some parts of the country.
“Murder is not a national problem,” the study found. “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas and even in those counties the murders are concentrated in small areas within them, and any solution must reduce those murders.”
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A chart created by the Crime Prevention Research Center shows “how few counties have a significant number of murders.”
(Crime Prevention Research Center)
Murders spiked in 2020 as COVID-19 lockdowns upended daily life and protests and riots swept the nation following the killing of George Floyd during an interaction with Minneapolis police. Murders increased nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the previous year, marking the largest single-year increase in murders since the FBI began tracking such crimes.
The center, led by founder John Lott, divided counties into three different groups based on the number of murders recorded: a majority of counties experiencing no murders; a smaller group of counties that have low homicide rates; and a “small set of counties where murders are very common.”
The 52% of counties with no reported murders covered 10% of the population, according to the study. Some 68% of counties did not exceed one murder in 2020, representing 2.6% of all murders in 2020, according to the report.
Most of the murders took place in the “worst” 5% of counties that year, while the worst 1%, just 31 counties, accounted for 42% of murders in 2020, according to the study. That area is where 21% of the entire population of the United States lives.
“The worst 2% of counties (62 counties) contain 31% of the population and 56% of the murders. The worst 5% of counties contain 47% of the population and account for 73% of the murders. But even within those counties, the murders are highly concentrated in small areas,” the report continued.
A graph created by the Center for Crime Prevention Research shows the percentage of murders in the “worst” US counties in 2020.
(Crime Prevention Research Center)
Illinois’ Cook County, home to Chicago and about 40% of the state’s population, had the most recorded murders of any place in 2020 at a whopping 775, according to the report.
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Cook County was followed by:
- Los Angeles County, 691 murders
- Harris County, Texas, 537 murders
- Philadelphia County, 495 murders
- The five boroughs of New York City, 465 murders combined
- Wayne County, Michigan, 379 murders
- Shelby County, Tennessee, 311 murders
- Maricopa County, Arizona, 299 murders
- Baltimore City County, 291 murders
- Dallas County, 281 murders
- Marion County, Indiana, 234 murders
Map created by the Crime Prevention Research Center shows where murders are concentrated in the US.
(Crime Prevention Research Center)
The data was compiled through the FBI’s 2020 Homicide Supplemental Report, according to the center. Although not all states reported such data that year, or did not report data at all, the researchers also used the states’ open crime data as a surrogate.
The study found that within the counties themselves, murders and other violent crimes are also concentrated in certain areas, with the study pointing to Los Angeles County ZIP codes as examples.
In Los Angeles County, the worst 10% of ZIP codes reported 41% of the murders, the worst 20% of ZIP codes accounted for 67% of the murders, and the worst 30% accounted for 82% of the murders. .
Members of the forensic team gather evidence at the scene of a fatal shooting in Long Beach, California.
(Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images/File)
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Data shows that murders have become more concentrated since 2010. The top 5% of the most dangerous counties in the country accounted for 71% of murders in the US in 2010, which fell to 69% in 2014 but jumped to 73 % in 2020.
A Chicago police officer investigates the crime scene of a Chicago shooting victim.
(Reuters/File)
“Between 2010 and 2014, the murder rate in the bottom 5% of counties fell from 71% to 69%,” the report found.
“But between 2014 and 2020, they had risen steadily again by four percentage points, so murders were even more concentrated than in 2010,” he said. “The worst 1 percent counties drove that increase. The murder ratio in these worst counties increased during this period, but there was no change in the population of these counties.”
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The 2020 murder spike has been attributed to a handful of variables, according to experts who previously spoke to Fox News Digital, including: anti-police rhetoric voiced by Black Lives Matter and defund the police proponents; the pandemic; a culture of lawlessness promoted by liberal district attorneys; and the “Ferguson effect”: when the police back down, violent crime increases.
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Some urban areas across the country have continued to see spikes in violent crime, including New Orleans, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Portland.
