The violent crime rate in the U.S. increased in 2016 for the second year in a row, partly due to murder increases in Chicago and a few other major cities.
The FBI statistics released Monday showed violent crime rates were still near historical lows, but had increased slightly, according to The Chicago Tribune. While some major cities, such as Chicago, has significantly higher violent crime rates, others, such as New York City, have seen continued declines.
Nationwide, the violent crime rate increased 4.1 percent over 2015’s rate, the Tribune reported. Property crimes such as burglary and car theft dropped in 2016 as they have for the past 14 years in a row, but the murder rate increased 8.6 percent during the same time period, according to NBC News.
The FBI reported a total of 17,250 murders in 2016, with 7.9 murders having been committed per 100,000 people, NBC reported. Although the overall crime rate increased, the FBI said it is still down 18 percent from the rate 10 years ago.
“For the sake of all Americans, we must confront and turn back the rising tide of violent crime. And we must do it together,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said about the findings, NBC reported.
Some experts didn’t think the uptick was indicative of a “rising tide,” however. Fordham University law professor John Pfaff pointed out that “five neighborhoods in Chicago explain 10 percent of the national increase in homicide rates,” NBC reported.
“As the murder rate gets lower, as it has in the past several years, any upward change looks worse,” Pfaff added.
Twitter users supported police’s role in curtailing crime, but couldn’t resist connecting the story to the NFL national anthem protests.
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