A new study shows that over half of murders in America take place in only 2% of the counties in the country.
The study, conducted by John Lott’s Crime Research Prevention Center, shows that 2% of America’s counties had 51% of the country’s murders in 2014; 5% of America’s counties had 68% of the country’s murders. According to Fox News, “If the deadliest 5% of the counties were removed, the U.S. murder rate would be 2.56 per 100,000 people.”
In fact, 54% of counties didn’t have a single murder, 69% had no more than one murder and 76% had no more than two murders, per the study.
When examining the counties that were responsible for the most murders in the country, the murders were concentrated in specific areas. For instance, most of the 2014 murders in Los Angeles County took place in Compton and East Los Angeles; there were very few murders in the San Fernando Valley.
The results are similar for Washington, D.C. – the murders were bunched in areas past the Anacostia River and in areas north and northeast of the capitol. The western parts of D.C. did have not many murders.
The study notes that these findings are in line with the data presented in Lott’s book More Guns, Less Crime showing that “from 1977 to 2000, on average 73 percent of counties in any given year had zero murders.”
The conclusion of the study is that “murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a very small set of urban areas, and any solution must reduce those murders.”
by Aaron Bandler
