Violent Crime’s Disparate Racial Impact | City Journal
According to CDC data released last month, 2020 bore witness to the largest rate of increase in homicides recorded in modern history a finding that tracks with FBI data. Murder rose 29 percent from 2019 to 2020, surpassing the previous record 12.7 percent spike from 1967 to 1968. Unsurprisingly, the victims of the latest surge in violence were not equally distributed across racial groups. The rise in black homicide victims from 2019 to 2020 was almost twice as big as the rise in white victims (28 percent versus 16 percent).
A new Marshall Project analysis on last year s homicide wave in major American cities highlights the striking racial disparity: more than 85 percent of the increase in murders occurred in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, where homicide rates were already higher than in white neighborhoods. In Chicago, for example, black neighborhoods saw a rise of 27 murders per 100,000 residents, whereas white neighborhoods saw a rise of only two per 100,000.