It was just a year ago that news reports were touting the lowest crime figures in many years.
Time magazine’s take on the trend was typical. “Violent crime in the U.S. fell 4.4 percent last year [2013] to the lowest level in decades,” Time reported.
And the crime rate dropped again for all of 2014.
According to an FBI news release in September, both violent crime and property crime decreased in 2014 compared to 2013.
The steady long-term decline in crime since the mid-1990s is the major reason why it’s far too soon to read very much into disturbing new crime statistics from Denver. Yes, rates for both violent and property crimes this year from January to October have risen, in some cases dramatically, compared to the same period in 2014. But the reasons are elusive.
, the number of murders rose over the two comparable periods from 26 to 42, while aggravated assaults climbed by 14 percent and forcible sex offenses by 12 percent.
Meanwhile, property crimes soared, with “stolen property” crimes alone climbing 45 percent.
If 2015 becomes the norm, or the start of a trend toward higher crime rates, then obviously Denver’s recent figures will mark something of a watershed. But it’s impossible to reach that conclusion yet.
“You have to keep it in perspective. It’s easy to say the sky is falling,” police spokesman Matt Murray told CBS4. “Is there a problem? Yes. Are we concerned? Yes. But is the sky falling? No.”
Murray is right, and yet there is one reason to worry that Denver’s figures might be part of a more durable trend. It’s the fact that similar spikes in crime are occurring in cities across the nation.
The New York Times reported at the end of August that more than 30 cities had seen a surge in murders by that point, with the increases in some urban centers — Milwaukee, St. Louis and Baltimore, for example — staggering.
No one has a good answer for an uptick in crime in so many places at once. The Times notes that some experts even cite the “Ferguson effect,” suggesting police have backed off enforcement for fear of being accused of harassment or excessive force. But that too is almost impossible to prove, especially when so many cities are involved.
Experts were surprised in the mid-1990s when crime began to subside after more than two decades of alarmingly high rates. So officials in Denver and elsewhere should take nothing for granted. With any luck this is a short-term blip, but they should be prepared for the worst in case it isn’t.
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