Looking Beyond The Numbers At The Homicide Epidemic
After the Baltimore City authorities celebrated a relatively calm January, February came in roaring like a lion. There were a total of 24 reported homicides in February in Baltimore, up from 14 in January. Nineteen of February’s 29 days saw at least one homicide, with February 21st being the deadliest with 3 homicides that day. As always, you can check the charts and graphs page for visualizations of these data. Continue reading “February Summary: It Was Rough”
After Baltimore City authorities celebrated that January of 2016 didn’t have as many homicides as January of 2015, and that it was the first month since April 2015 without 27 or more homicides, a series of incidents have pushed February 2016 past February 2015 in the number of homicides. A double homicide on Saturday, February 20, pushed the number of homicides this month to 16. Then, a stabbing this morning brought it up to 17.
With a week to go in the month, the rate of homicides per day for February is now 0.81 homicides per day. It was 0.45 homicides per day in January. (Two incidents in January, one stabbing and one shooting, were ruled out as homicides and classified as suicides: one intentional and one accidental.) So it will be interesting to see how Baltimore City authorities, like the Mayor and Police Commissioner, will spin these new numbers.
We’ll give a February update on March 1. You can read our January update here.
The Safe Streets program in Baltimore has been active since 2009 in different neighborhoods. According to their website, Safe Streets works like this:
“The Health Department funds community-based organizations to implement the Safe Streets model in identified target neighborhoods. Safe Streets emphasizes the delivery of a unified message that violence is no longer acceptable through community organization and public education. Safe Streets also incorporates and emphasizes a strong street outreach component, with outreach workers canvassing neighborhoods and connecting with high-risk youth and young adults during evenings and weekends to diffuse situations and link them to services. Safe Streets is a tool that communities can use to restore the safety of their streets and strengthen community bonds through community mobilization, outreach, public education, faith, and criminal justice community involvement.”
January 2016 had 17 homicides reported to or by the Baltimore City Police Department. One was a hit-and-run homicide which can go either way in the final determination, but we’ve kept it in because it’s still under investigation.
You can see charts and graphs for these numbers in the charts and graphs page. All data are collected from public sources, news reports, and information released to the public by official agencies.
The annual list of most violent cities in the world has been released, and Baltimore is again in it. While St. Louis took the top spot for American cities, and 15th overall, Baltimore was not far behind in 19th place.
The report was published by a Mexican violence “observatory,” an office within a violence prevention organization. The “Citizen Council for Public Safety and Penal Justice” operates out of Mexico City and uses very sound methodology to make a determination of the ranking of these cities. They use published media reports, independent tracking of cases, and official estimates to come up with the list.
Other notable bullet points from the report:
You can read the whole report by 2016_01_25_seguridad_justicia_y_paz-50_most_violent_cities_2015. (Some parts are in Spanish.)
