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Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones: study


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Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones: study

Ben Adler
7-9 minutes

Republican politicians routinely claim that cities run by Democrats have been experiencing crime waves caused by failed governance, but a new study shows murder rates are actually higher in states and cities controlled by Republicans.

“We’re seeing murders in our cities, all Democrat-run,” former President Donald Trump asserted at a March 26 rally in Georgia. “People are afraid to go out.”

In February, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blamed Democrats for a 2018 law that reduced some federal prison sentences — even though it was signed by Trump after passing a GOP-controlled Congress. “It’s your party who voted in lockstep for the First Step Act that let thousands of violent felons on the street who have now committed innumerable violent crimes,” Cotton said during a speech in the Senate.

Last December, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, told Fox News viewers, “America’s most beautiful cities are indeed being ruined by liberal policies: There’s a direct line between death and decay and liberal policies.”

Former President Donald Trump at a rally at a rally on March 26 in Commerce, Georgia, in front of a sign reading

 

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at a rally on March 26 in Commerce, Ga. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)

 

But a comparison of violent crime rates in jurisdictions controlled by Democrats and Republicans tells a very different story. In fact, a new study from the center-left think tank Third Way shows that states won by Trump in the 2020 election have higher murder rates than those carried by Joe Biden. The highest murder rates, the study found, are often in conservative, rural states.

The study found that murder rates in the 25 states Trump carried in 2020 are 40% higher overall than in the states Biden won. (The report used 2020 data because 2021 data is not yet fully available.) The five states with the highest per capita murder rate — Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Missouri — all lean Republican and voted for Trump.

There are some examples of states Biden won in 2020 that also have high per capita murder rates, including New Mexico and Georgia, which have the seventh- and eighth-highest murder rates, respectively. And there are Trump-supporting states with low murder rates, such as Idaho and Utah. Broadly speaking, the South, and to a lesser extent the Midwest, has more murders per capita than the Northeast, interior West and West Coast, the study found.

Those findings are consistent with a pattern that has existed for decades, in which the South has had higher rates of violent crime than the nation as a whole.

Demonstrators march in Atlanta in 2021 to protest the shooting death of Daunte Wright.

 

Demonstrators march in Atlanta on April 14, 2021, to protest the shooting death of Daunte Wright three days earlier. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)

 

“We as criminologists have known this for quite some time,” Jennifer Ortiz, a professor of criminology at Indiana University Southeast, told Yahoo News. “States like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama have historically had high crime rates.”

Criminologists say research shows higher rates of violent crime are found in areas that have low average education levels, high rates of poverty and relatively modest access to government assistance. Those conditions characterize some portions of the American South.

“They are among the poorest states in our union,” Ortiz said of the Deep South. “They have among the highest rates of child poverty. They are among the least-educated states. They are among the states with the highest levels of substance abuse. All of those factors contribute to people engaging in criminal behavior.”

“I thought that was a very good study,” Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and former president of the American Society of Criminology, told Yahoo News about the Third Way report. “In Republican states, states with Republican governors, crime rates tend to be higher. I’m not certain that’s related to the fact that the governor is a Republican, but it’s a fact nonetheless.”

Police and emergency personnel work on a crime scene in November 21 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

 

Police and emergency personnel work on a crime scene in Waukesha, Wis., in November 2021. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

 

(While the Third Way study divided states by presidential vote in 2020, using gubernatorial party affiliation leads to similar results because most states have recently chosen the same party for governor and for president. Based on presidential vote, eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates lean Republican, versus seven of the top 10 if one uses the governor’s party.)

Although murder rates tend to be highest in the South, the biggest increases in 2020 were found in the Great Plains and Midwest, according to Third Way. The largest jumps were in Wyoming (91.7% higher than in 2019), South Dakota (69%), Wisconsin (63.2%), Nebraska (59.1%) and Minnesota (58.1%). Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska all voted for Trump and have Republican governors. Wisconsin and Minnesota voted for Biden and are led by Democrats.

Few large cities are governed by Republicans — only 26 of the 100 largest U.S. cities have Republican mayors — making apples-to-apples comparisons difficult. But cities that do have Republican mayors do not have lower murder rates than similarly sized Democratic-led cities, the study found.

Some experts warn against the impulse to use crime data to score quick political points.

“Being a Republican or Democratic state or city is correlated with many other issues,” David Weisburd, a professor of criminology and executive director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University, wrote in an email to Yahoo News. “That means that the murder rate may be due to the state being Republican, or it may be due to the fact that Republican states have many other risk factors related to crime or murder rates. Even with a very comprehensive modeling of all of these factors, it is very difficult to get a valid causal result for explaining crime rates.”

Police tape blocks a street where a person was shot in a drug-related incident in Philadelphia in 2021.

 

Police tape blocks a street where a person was shot in a drug-related incident in Philadelphia in 2021. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

 

That argument cuts both ways, however. Weisburd also thinks the claims of Trump and other Republicans who say Democrats have caused a crime wave in the cities and states they govern are unfounded. “I don't think this argument can be supported no matter which way you go,” Weisburd said.

Murder rates in the U.S. rose dramatically in 2020 from record lows, and the increases are similar across states — regardless of partisan preference. For homicides in 2020, Third Way found a 32.2% uptick in Trump-backing states versus a 30.8% rise in those that voted for Biden. Some states with large cities, such as New York and Pennsylvania, saw larger-than-average increases: New York went up 47% and Pennsylvania is up 39%. But the largest increases were in rural, Republican-led states, including Montana (+84%) and South Dakota (+81%).

The higher national murder rate is naturally causing public concern, although violent crime does remain far below its early 1990s high point. “Using the FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2019,” from 757 incidents per 100,000 people to 379 per 100,000, the Pew Research Center noted last November. Between 2019 and 2020, the murder rate jumped from 6 homicides per 100,000 people to 7.8 homicides per 100,000, but that was still 22% below the rate in 1991 of 10 homicides per 100,000.

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These are just facts and details.  Facts and details haven't had a home in Tom Cotton's mind in years.  Even worse is the Senator from Missouri.  You would have a better chance finding a televangelist turning down a $100 donation than finding an issue that Senator Hawley doesn't exploit for political purposes.

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Well, when you aggressively pursue policy designed to keep a large percentage of the population poor and physically unhealthy, yeah, the violent crime is going to go up. 

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Is it just me or is tying murder rate to a particular party just weird journalism? 

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4 minutes ago, creed said:

Is it just me or is tying murder rate to a particular party just weird journalism? 

Did you read it? It was in response to numerous high ranking elected officials making highly partisan claims about murder rates.

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Article is complete bullsh*t.   It’s completely based on per capita and not overall numbers.   Chicago, LA, St. Louis, NYC, Baltimore and Detroit have more murders per year than all the republicans run cities in the entire country.    

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All this talk while blood drips from the hands of politicians around the country.....from both sides. Lovely. 

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19 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Did you read it? It was in response to numerous high ranking elected officials making highly partisan claims about murder rates.

Yea I read it and it's still weird. No definite conclusion or "golden thread" about murder rates. Just "hey i found and interesting fact where a few republican officials said something that may not be true". In the meantime murders are rising and republicans are screaming it's the democrats fault while democrats are screaming it's the republicans fault. 

Edited by creed
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Cities With Most Murders 2022

The United States is the 128th safest country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. The US’s safety rank has decreased each year since 2016. A large factor in determining the safety index of countries is their murder rate.

The twenty cities in the United States with the highest murder rates (murders per 100,000 people) are:

 

  1. St. Louis, MO (69.4)
  2. Baltimore, MD (51.1)
  3. New Orleans, LA (40.6)
  4. Detroit, MI (39.7)
  5. Cleveland, OH (33.7)
  6. Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
  7. Kansas City, MO (31.2)
  8. Memphis, TN (27.1)
  9. Newark, NJ (25.6)
  10. Chicago, IL (24)
  11. Cincinnati, OH (23.8)
  12. Philadelphia, PA (20.2)
  13. Milwaukee, WI (20.0)
  14. Tulsa, OK (18.6)
  15. Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)
  16. Indianapolis, IN (17.7)
  17. Louisville, KY (17.5)
  18. Oakland, CA (17.1)
  19. Washington D.C. (17.0)
  20. Atlanta, GA (16.7)
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6 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Sounds like proof positive Republicans are murderers. 

You forgot your sarcasm emoji. 🙂

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1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

The facts are indisputable.

Wow...just wow and your summarization skills. :dunno: 

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12 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Cities With Most Murders 2022

The United States is the 128th safest country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. The US’s safety rank has decreased each year since 2016. A large factor in determining the safety index of countries is their murder rate.

The twenty cities in the United States with the highest murder rates (murders per 100,000 people) are:

 

  1. St. Louis, MO (69.4). Democrat Mayor
  2. Baltimore, MD (51.1) Democrat Mayor
  3. New Orleans, LA (40.6) Democrat Mayor
  4. Detroit, MI (39.7) Democrat Mayor
  5. Cleveland, OH (33.7) Democrat Mayor
  6. Las Vegas, NV (31.4) Independant
  7. Kansas City, MO (31.2) Democrat Mayor
  8. Memphis, TN (27.1) Democrat Mayor
  9. Newark, NJ (25.6) Democrat Mayor
  10. Chicago, IL (24) Democrat Mayor
  11. Cincinnati, OH (23.8). Democrat Mayor
  12. Philadelphia, PA (20.2) Democrat Mayor
  13. Milwaukee, WI (20.0) Democrat Mayor
  14. Tulsa, OK (18.6) Republian Mayor
  15. Pittsburgh, PA (18.4) Democrat Mayor
  16. Indianapolis, IN (17.7) Democrat Mayor
  17. Louisville, KY (17.5) Democrat Mayor
  18. Oakland, CA (17.1) Democrat Mayor.
  19. Washington D.C. (17.0) Democrat Mayor
  20. Atlanta, GA (16.7) Democrat Mayor

The facts are indisputable.  Who has more control over cities?  The Governor or Mayor?  Just another reason the media bias is so bad.  It was an article written to dispute the Republican claim that crime is soaring in Democratic Run CITIES. 

It looks like Tulsa OK will have to get its act together.

ETA:  expand the quoted text to see the ruling political party for each of these cities.

Edited by I_M4_AU
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1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

The facts are indisputable.  Who has more control over cities?  The Governor or Mayor?  Just another reason the media bias is so bad.  It was an article written to dispute the Republican claim that crime is soaring in Democratic Run CITIES. 

It looks like Tulsa OK will have to get its act together.

ETA:  expand the quoted text to see the ruling political party for each of these cities.

You are giving them too much credit to understand facts. They can’t even figure out the difference between male and female. 

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5 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Republican, Democrat, or Neither....you give guns to everyone and people start shooting each other. 

That's what the US proves more than anything. 

When criminals get guns , usually bad things happen.     Fixed it for you 

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3 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

When criminals get guns , usually bad things happen.     Fixed it for you 

Yes, criminals are typically people. 

And when everyone has easy access to guns that makes it very easy for criminals to get them and use them for crimes. 

 

Every 1st world country on earth has criminals. America is alone and unique in the high level of gun deaths and violence. 

 

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Just now, CoffeeTiger said:

Yes, criminals are typically people. 

And when everyone has easy access to guns that makes it very easy for criminals to get them and use them for crimes. 

 

Every 1st world country on earth has criminals. America is alone and unique in the high level of gun deaths and violence. 

 

Isn’t great to be an American!   I’m sure glad I am.   

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1 minute ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Yes, criminals are typically people. 

And when everyone has easy access to guns that makes it very easy for criminals to get them and use them for crimes. 

 

Every 1st world country on earth has criminals. America is alone and unique in the high level of gun deaths and violence. 

 

Think I might even go out and buy me gun.  Life sure is sweet 

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12 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

Think I might even go out and buy me gun.  Life sure is sweet 

 

Go buy as many guns as you want.

I encourage people who are responsible and properly trained to go out and buy guns for protection. 

 

In America you don't buy guns to protect yourself from the government, you buy them to protect yourself from all the other mentally ill, drug abusing, or gang affiliated Americans who are running around packing heat also. 

God Bless America indeed. 

 

And since we're in political smack:

 

B64SKlX.jpg

Edited by CoffeeTiger
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16 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

And when everyone has easy access to guns that makes it very easy for criminals to get them and use them for crimes. 

Isn’t it against the law for criminals to possess firearms?  Maybe we should pass more laws prohibiting law abiding citizens from possessing firearms so criminals can’t get them for crimes.  Is this the new logic?

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Dumbasses gonna dumbass.

Quote

Conclusions: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

Quote

Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.

Quote

Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)

Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003.  We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide.  This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty).  There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.

 

Basic logic told me and should have also told all you this long ago, but it's good to know the numbers back it up.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9715182/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A Guns kept in homes,or kill in self-defense.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15522849/

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/

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I still haven't seen anyone give a rebuttal to why Republican led STATES have higher rates of violent crime. 

 

All the conservatives on here just ignored the article and then went ":Well Democratic CITIES have high crime" Checkmate Libturds" 

Yeah...large cities have more population and higher crime....only 26 of the 100 most populated cities in America have Republican mayors, so of course democratic cities have the most high crime.....cause almost all major cities are Democrat.

That doesn't explain away the high crime in the Republican led rural states though. 

 

Edited by CoffeeTiger
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3 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I still haven't seen anyone give a rebuttal to why Republican led STATES have higher rates of violent crime. 

 

All the conservatives on here just ignored the article and then went ":Well Democratic CITIES have high crime" Checkmate Libturds" 

Yeah...large cities have more population and higher crime....only 26 of the 100 most populated cities in America have Republican mayors, so of course democratic cities have the most high crime.....cause almost all major cities are Democrat.

That doesn't explain away the high crime in the Republican led rural states though. 

Wow, violent crime is higher in areas with higher population density and greater income disparity? Who knew?

I'm sure it's because Dem mayors make urban poor people poor and urban rich people rich and then fail to implement the GOP policies that would totally prevent crime from happening under those circumstances. No, it can't be GOP policies that ensure most people have easier access to firearms than they do to decent education and healthcare. Couldn't have anything to do with any of that. 

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