Red State Murder Problem (1 Viewer)

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    Optimus Prime

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    Almost put this in the Media Tracker thread

    Interesting read and definitely goes against the commonly heard narrative
    =================================================

    Every news outlet from FOX to CNN to The New York Times to local newspapers has a story with attention-grabbing headlines like “US cities hit all-time murder records.” Fox News and Republicans have jumped on this and framed it as a “Democrat” problem. They blame it on Democrat’s “soft-on-crime” approach and have even referred to a New York District Attorney’s approach as “hug-a-thug.” Many news stories outside of Fox have also purported that police reform is responsible for this rise in murder and have pointed to cities like New York and Los Angeles.

    There is a measure of truth to these stories. The US saw an alarming 30% increase in murder in 2020. While 2021 data is not yet complete, murder was on the rise again this past year. Some “blue” cities, like Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, have seen real and persistent increases in homicides. These cities—along with others like Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis—are also in places with wall-to-wall media coverage and national media interest.

    But there is a large piece of the homicide story that is missing and calls into question the veracity of the right-wing obsession over homicides in Democratic cities: murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.

    For example, Jacksonville, a city with a Republican mayor, had 128 more murders in 2020 than San Francisco, a city with a Democrat mayor, despite their comparable populations. In fact, the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Yet there is barely a whisper, let alone an outcry, over the stunning levels of murders in these and other places.

    We collected 2019 and 2020 murder data from all 50 states. (Comprehensive 2021 data is not yet available.) We pulled the data from yearly crime reports released by state governments, specifically the Departments of Justice and Safety. For states that didn’t issue state crime reports, we pulled data from reputable local news sources. To allow for comparison, we calculated the state’s per capita murder rate, the number of murders per 100,000 residents, and categorized states by their presidential vote in the 2020 election, resulting in an even 25-25 split.

    We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts. And finally, many of the states with the worst murder rates—like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas—are ones that few would describe as urban. Only 2 of America’s top 100 cities in population are located in these high murder rate states. And not a single one of the top 10 murder states registers in the top 15 for population density.

    Whether one does or does not blame Republican leaders for high murder rates, it seems that Republican officeholders do a better job of blaming Democrats for lethal crime than actually reducing lethal crime.

    Trump-Voting States Account for 8 out of the 10 Highest Murder Rates in 2020.​

    If you’re tuned in to the media, you’d think murder is rocketing skyward in New York, California, Illinois. But those states don’t even crack the top ten............

    Three of the five states with the largest increase in murder rate were Trump-voting Wyoming at 91.7%, South Dakota at 69%, and Nebraska at 59.1%. These states are decidedly rural and do not conform to the chaos-in-the-city meme that has overtaken the crime debate. Biden-voting Wisconsin came in at the number three spot at 63.2% and Minnesota came in fifth at 58.1%. Out of the top ten states, six were Trump-voting states—with the additional three being Kentucky, West Virginia, and Kansas. The remaining states in the top ten were Delaware and Washington. Only one of the top ten states in murder rate increases, Delaware, was among the top twenty in population density......



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    BullSheetBuddha

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    I've never understood New Mexico being so high. Who is killing who in NM?

    Probably being on the border has something to do with it.
     

    insidejob

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    Didn't know that. Kick 'em out. Such a beautiful state.
    I plan to retire to New Mexico. Ojo Caliente is one of the coolest spots on earth. They've got natural springs that the natives dug hundreds of years ago. The first time I ever went there was over Thanksgiving when I was like 12 and we got there after dark and it started to snow. Can't say there's anything more relaxing than watching the snow fall all around you in the mountains while you're digging your feet into the 104 degree sand at the bottom of the pool that's been there for centuries.
     

    BullSheetBuddha

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    I plan to retire to New Mexico. Ojo Caliente is one of the coolest spots on earth. They've got natural springs that the natives dug hundreds of years ago. The first time I ever went there was over Thanksgiving when I was like 12 and we got there after dark and it started to snow. Can't say there's anything more relaxing than watching the snow fall all around you in the mountains while you're digging your feet into the 104 degree sand at the bottom of the pool that's been there for centuries.

    I'm a big fan of NM also. I first went there, Sante Fe, at 17 and fell in love with it. It's so different.

     
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    cuddlemonkey

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    I plan to retire to New Mexico. Ojo Caliente is one of the coolest spots on earth. They've got natural springs that the natives dug hundreds of years ago. The first time I ever went there was over Thanksgiving when I was like 12 and we got there after dark and it started to snow. Can't say there's anything more relaxing than watching the snow fall all around you in the mountains while you're digging your feet into the 104 degree sand at the bottom of the pool that's been there for centuries.

    Take me with you.
     

    insidejob

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    I'm a big fan of NM also. I first went there, Sante Fe, at 17 and fell in love with it. It's so different.


    Santa Fe really is beautiful. And it's a pretty small town that keeps that slower pace of doing things. Taos is another, let's say...different kind of place but in a cool way. Man, I'm getting all sentimental and want to take a trip now.
     

    insidejob

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    bclemms at SR has a thread going about Jackson, MS right now being one of the most dangerous cities in the world at the moment.
    I've gotta go check it out. I'll bet New Orleans is giving Jackson a run for their money. Violent crime is out of control. I'm pretty sure there is a serial killer murdering people on I-10 too. You won't hear that out of the NOPD or mayor's mouth, but there are murders on I-10 what seems like weekly. For some reason, New Orleans criminals really like making the city the murder capital of the world.
     

    BullSheetBuddha

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    Santa Fe really is beautiful. And it's a pretty small town that keeps that slower pace of doing things. Taos is another, let's say...different kind of place but in a cool way. Man, I'm getting all sentimental and want to take a trip now.
    You can imagine a 17 year old from Boston, never been out west before, walking around Santa Fe in 1961. My mind was blown.
     

    SaulGoodmanEsq

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    I've never thought penalties act as any significant deterrence against crime. It's mostly a societal/moral issue where people decide to commit criminal acts in spite of the consequences. Louisiana has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the nation with the habitual offender statutes.
     

    J-DONK

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    I've never thought penalties act as any significant deterrence against crime. It's mostly a societal/moral issue where people decide to commit criminal acts in spite of the consequences. Louisiana has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the nation with the habitual offender statutes.

    Louisiana is the prison capital of the world. Retribution style criminal justice works as well as trickle down economics. I imagine it's designed that way, and for good reason. Prisoners are modern day slaves working for large corporations far below minimum wage.

    Just remember America is not some barbaric third world country. Prison labor isn't slave labor, and campaign donations aren't bribery.
     

    tigerfan

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    Lol you can dredge data and come up with any agenda driven outcome you’d like. Let’s see the numbers for every murder and which party runs the city the numbers are in.
     

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