‘Ferguson effect’ to blame? DOJ study points to ‘unprecedented’ homicide rise



As the US comes to terms with the Orlando massacre, the Justice Department has revealed “a nearly unprecedented” spike in homicides. Yet, the worrisome surge was not due to mass shootings, but a “Ferguson effect,” the new DOJ study says.

The paper, released three days after the shooting in Florida, documents a nearly 17 percent rise in homicides across the nation’s 56 large cities in just one year.

It appears that of the sampled cities, 10 are directly responsible for the homicides spike, accounting for 66.7 percent of the total increase. The top 10 cities are Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, Nashville, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and St. Louis.

“Had homicides not risen in these cities, it is likely that the homicide increase of 2015 would have generated far less attention and controversy,” wrote Richard Rosenfeld, the author of the study and a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

However, Rosenfeld focuses not so much on the spike itself, but on the specific factors that lay behind the 2015 homicide rise. He highlights three “plausible explanations” – a surge in the illegal drug trade, a wave of released prisoners, and a theory known as the “Ferguson effect.”

As the “United States is in the midst of a major drug epidemic,” the overdose death rate – mostly from opioids – more than doubled between 1999 and 2014.

However, Rosenfeld could not tell for certain whether the growth in the urban drug market had directly contributed to the homicide surge in 2015.

The same conclusion relates to declines in imprisonment, because there are “reasons for and against” the assumption that this was a major contributor. Rosenfeld’s third explanation, however, seems to correlate with the spike better than the first two.

“The homicide increase occurred in the immediate aftermath of controversial police use-of-force incidents. The timing of the increase provides stronger support for the Ferguson effect explanation, in either of its versions, than for explanations attributing the homicide rise to expanding drug markets or declining imprisonment,” the study said.

The “Ferguson effect” has been linked to the homicide increase in the top 10 cities, all of which have relatively large African-American populations.

It is no coincidence that the name of the controversial trend – “Ferguson effect” – corresponds to the August 2014 death of an unarmed 18-year-old African-American man shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

“There is ample evidence in support of the third expectation regarding African-Americans’ lack of confidence in the police,” Rosenfeld wrote.

The year after Ferguson, the percentage of blacks that believed the justice system was biased rose to 74 percent. However, evidence supporting the “Ferguson effect” theory is also scant, and the details are not very clear.

At the same time, Rosenfeld stressed that his findings are only limited to the 56 sampled cities and cannot be “generalized to smaller cities, towns and rural areas, where average homicide rates are lower.”

Rosenfeld stresses the importance of official crime data being released on a monthly basis.

In the case of the 2015 surge, “the debate over the homicide rise might have produced less heat and more light,” he concluded.

https//www.rt.com/usa/346883-us-orlando-massacre-homicide/
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FBI Director James Comey


Comey called it a “viral video effect,” or “Ferguson effect”: the officers tend to be less aggressive towards a suspect, knowing he or she might be filming them. This “could well be at the heart” of a recent increase in violent crimes, the FBI director added.

“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at two in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he said.

http://www.rt.com/usa/343027-fbi-viral-police-director/
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and guess who is running those Cities (Into the Ground)?

People like NotSoSharpton and the gang don't want black on black crime in the liberal run inner cities to be news! It would distract from the racist narrative, expose failed liberal leadership, and could cost them their paychecks!

Just like Occupy was blamed, targeted, and used as patsies, the liberals now have BLM they can distract with and blame!

As OBlowme and Clinton look down their noses at a nation they consider under-educated, low class eaters!

the last leaders the 'black community' had were Malcolm and martin and we see what happened to them'


now the 'black community' has to have more local 'leaders' instead of national,, and those 'local leaders' do plenty within their small communities,, many of which do have 'plans'


but greed is overrunning far more black communities than in the past,, the crab mentality,, the acceptability of using and stepping on and looking down on each other has replaced the older community values and it is having detrimental affect on many communities which already had so many OTHER obstacles to face, like poverty, health, and inferior education

translation: these men haven't done nearly as much to keep white privilege alive and therefore have damaged the 'race relations' between whites and everyone else,, more than anyone in recent history


lol