The world has changed since 68
by digby
I mentioned in my piece earlier today that Trump is stuck in a time warp with his “law and order” rhetoric.
Shot:
Crime is out of control, and rapidly getting worse. Look what is going on in Chicago and our inner cities. Not good!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016
The year Donald Trump was born in Queens, 1946, New York City experienced 350 murders — a rate of 4.5 murders for every 100,000 people in the city. When “The Art of the Deal” was published in 1987, affirming Trump’s position as a bona fide celebrity, the city saw 1,672 murders, 23 for every 100,000 people in New York. The city was nearing the apex of its crime wave, which peaked in 1990, the year 2,245 people were murdered. (These historical data are from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.)
On Monday, the New York Police Department made an announcement: The number of shootings in New York in the first half of the year had reached a historic low. Murders are down nearly 9 percent over 2015 citywide, and violent crime has dropped slightly. Compared to the first half of 1993, near the city’s crime peak, Donald Trump’s hometown has seen a 76.8 percent drop in violent crime and an 83 percent drop in murders. Murders are down slightly in Brooklyn over the first half of 2015 — and down substantially in Queens.
This piggy-backs on Trump’s announcement Monday that he is the “law and order candidate,” drawing a direct comparison between his campaign and that of Richard Nixon in 1968. Crime is spiking, Trump argues, and he is the guy to guide our national ship through this storm.
But crime isn’t out of control — particularly when you compare the country to 1968. Violent crime rates are higher now than they were then, but in the late 1960s, the country was seeing a sudden and dramatic surge in violent crime and murder. Between 1964 and 1968, the violent crime rate jumped from 190.6 incidents per 100,000 Americans to 298.4, an increase of over 50 percent. Between 2010 and 2014, the most recent period for which we have FBI data, the rate sank from 404.5 to 375.7.
We know that Trump doesn’t need no stinking numbers. Still, it’s important for normal people to have the facts.
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