Spike and Recovery Homicide in Big Cities, 2018–23

Excerpt:  “Nationwide, homicide surged in 2020 and 2021, before slowly decreasing over 2022 and 2023. It is crucial to understand the dynamics driving this change, so that policymakers can prevent conditions conducive to such surges and can gain a stronger understanding of what drives crime in general. … A major finding is that the cities with the highest initial homicide rates saw the biggest spikes in per-capita terms, just as the demographic groups with the highest initial homicide rates saw nationwide. However, when homicide-rate changes are viewed in proportional terms to take account of this—in other words, treating an increase from 4 to 8 per 100,000 as similar to an increase from 8 to 16 per 100,000, as both represent a doubling—the emerging patterns are more subtle.”