(CNN) – The number of homicides continues to rise in major cities in the United States after a year in which there was a record increase in homicides across the country, according to a report published by the Council of Criminal Justice.
The study of homicides during the first six months of this year in 22 cities showed that the number of murders increased 16% compared to 2020. The report is the latest to show the increase in homicides nationwide.
According to a preliminary FBI report, the number of homicides in 2020 compared to 2019 increased by 25%, the biggest jump since the agency began publishing annual homicide figures in the 1960s.
The study was produced by the Criminal Justice Council, a nonpartisan think tank that advocates for “a fair and effective criminal justice system.”
The total number of homicides in the cities studied is 259 more than in 2020, and 548 more than in the same period of 2019. Assaults with firearms in those cities increased by five percent compared to 2020, and assaults aggravated increased by nine percent. Drug and property crime declined, according to the organization.
An image of Los Angeles on Highway 110, on May 12, 2021. Los Angeles is the largest city included in the homicide report of the Council of Criminal Justice. (Credit: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images)
The reasons behind the historic increase
Criminologists, police officers, street workers, teachers, and others have offered different reasons for the historic spike in homicides. The Criminal Justice Council formed a group of professionals from institutions that study violence to investigate different potential causes of the crime spike, including “depoliticization,” “delegitimization,” and rising gun purchase rates.
The report’s main conclusion is that “as the pandemic subsides, lasting reductions in violence and crime will require the implementation of evidence-based crime control strategies and the enactment of long-needed police reforms.”
The report released by the Council of Criminal Justice is only a snapshot of the cities studied, and did not include some major locations such as New York and Houston due to “lack of data availability.” (New York publishes its homicide figures online, and during the first six months of 2021, the city had 21 more homicides than in the same period in 2020, an increase of 10.9%.)
Each of the thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country is responsible for its own data, but they are not required to report it to the FBI, which compiles the material in an annual report it publishes in the fall of each year. So far this year, less than half of the agencies have reported their data to the FBI. It’s not immediately clear how much, if any, homicides increased in smaller cities or small towns across the country, or how the national total of homicides in 2021 compares to that of 2020.