The FBI released its Uniform Crime Report last month showing a 30 percent increase in murders nationally in 2020. The report also revealed Louisiana had the highest murder rate for the 32nd straight year.
Newell Normand at WWL Radio spoke with Jeff Asher, Crime Analyst and Founder of AH Datalytics, to get a better explanation of the report and reasons why the U.S. had so many murders last year.
“There were lots of signs that we were going to see something like that,” Asher said. “The FBI had released quarterly data back in March, which showed a 25 percent increase. Big cities were up 30 to 34 percent last year relative to the year before, so it wasn't so much of a surprise, but it was certainly jarring. However you slice it, the percentage increase was enormous and by far the largest one year increase.”
“Can we answer exactly why we saw this jump in crime, nationally?” Newell asked.
“The challenge in looking at last year’s data is that it really was nationwide… you really can't just explain the places that tend to stick out in the news. It really was a dramatic increase, pretty much across the country.”
“We hear a lot about the pandemic as a cause. What are your thoughts on that?” Newell asked.
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“Murder was up through the first quarter of 2020, then it took off over the summer and then it sort of stayed there throughout the rest of the year and really into 2021. You can't really remove the pandemic from anything that happened last year, but the pandemic alone doesn't inherently explain it,” Asher said.
“Why is it tough to make an assessment from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports?” Newell asked.
“It goes back to the 1930s, when the FBI created Uniform Crime Reports. They decided that there were seven major categories of crime. We’re supposed to be switching to NIBRS, the National Incident Based Reporting System. It has more categories of data, but only about half of the law enforcement agencies that report data used NIBRS in 2020… the FBI is going to shut off the old system and we have no idea how many agencies are actually going to report data to the FBI next year. We're basically going to have no understanding of our national trend… Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has been using NIBRS and the New Orleans Police is not going to report crime data unless they make that switch,” Asher said.