Trump's Right on Crime

Although homicide rates are not rising everywhere, they’re up in most major U.S. cities — and dramatically so. Where homicide rates are down, they’re down only slightly. Preliminary FBI data for 2015 show that the aggregate homicide rate across all jurisdictions rose 6.2 percent for the first half of 2015 over the first half of 2014. Other surveys have found that the rate rose approximately 16–17 percent in 2015 over 2014 in major cities. Today, the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association released data for the first half of 2016. It confirms this trend: homicide rates are rising. If this increase in homicide rates holds, this year will see the largest jump in murders since 1960 with the exception of last year — which saw the largest increase in decades.

Sean Kennedy is a writer and researcher based in Washington, D.C. Parker Abt is a student at the University of Pennsylvania.