Report: Firearm-related death is more acute for black and Latino men than deployed U.S. soldiers

A recent study demonstrates that the risk of firearm-related death or injury is more acute for young black and Latino men who live in certain zip codes than for U.S. soldiers who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Black Americans are 12 times as likely as white Americans to die by firearm homicide.

What’s below is from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. It relays known data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice as to rates of victimization by race and heritage plus criminological literature as to income and age of victims.

Overall, there are no surprises beyond what we as a society routinely ignore or have come to accept, the fact that the risk of firearm-related death or injury is more acute for young black and Latino men who live in certain zip codes than for U.S. soldiers who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

We argue over whether crime rates are up or down and immerse ourselves in the difficulty of collecting and interpreting crime statistics which seems pointless when it comes to homicides and who they impact.

Per the National Crime Victimization Survey, violent crime increased by approximately 44 percent for 2022 and 2023 while others insist that crime is declining considerably through the use of crimes reported to law enforcement. It’s abundantly clear that the vast majority of what we call crime is not reported to law enforcement and compiled by the FBI.

However, the discussion seems meaningless when understanding the homicide victimization rate for young black and Latino men who live in certain zip codes. While homicides numerically are small when compared to other forms of violent crimes, it’s clear that the homicide discussion can destroy the reputation of cities prompting people and businesses to leave affected areas. Per Gallup and other sources, fear of crime is at record highs, and crime, specifically violent crime, is a top concern of voters.

To many of us who write about crime, it’s the unfortunate acceptance of homicide rates for people living in mostly low income areas in cities as business as usual. When we turn on local television news, there is the seemingly inevitable headline coverage of homicides and other forms of violent crime that do not create outrage. Society seems more concerned about shelter dogs not being adopted than they are about people killed or injured.

There is a point where we need to understand that violence in cities may be of equal or greater importance than hurricanes or floods. Collectively, homicide body counts far outweigh the impact of natural disasters both numerically and emotionally.

US Commission On Civil Rights (lightly edited)

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released the report, Federal Efforts in Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities among Victims of Violent Crime. In order to understand federal efforts to evaluate racial disparities in crime victimization, the Commission examined what crime data show about disparate impacts of violent victimization on minority communities. When considering all forms of violent crime, aggregated at the national level, there are no differences in the risk of victimization for white, black, and Latino people.

Crime victimization has wide-reaching consequences for victims, their families and friends, their communities, and society in general. The rate of violent crime victimization has decreased dramatically since its peak in the early 1990s. However, the nation recently experienced an increase in serious forms of violence. In 2020, homicide rates were 30 percent higher than the previous year. In the same period, aggravated assaults, including nonfatal shootings, also increased.

While there is no difference in the risk of victimization overall based on race, there are disparities amongst other demographics and in certain types of crimes. Black Americans are 12 times as likely as White Americans to die by firearm homicide. Crime concentration in certain areas became associated with race because contemporary disadvantaged neighborhoods are predominately black or Latino. People living in households that earn the lowest incomes are more likely to be victimized than their higher-income counterparts, and young people are more likely to be victims of crime as well.

A major impediment to exploring crime victimization rates is that many crimes, even violent crimes, are not known to law enforcement. In 2020, only 40 percent of violent victimizations were reported to police. Compensation and assistance programs are available to crime victims, but longstanding research shows that these programs are underutilized, mostly because victims are not aware of the programs and services available to them.

Racial disparities in homicide are especially pronounced in large, metropolitan areas, where violent crime rates are the highest. The concentration of crime in large cities is a consistent pattern in crime trends over time. Within cities, violent crime concentrates in certain neighborhoods, street segments, or blocks. Ruth Abaya, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician and Senior Director for the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, explains, “In many places throughout the country, community violence is concentrated, it’s cyclical, and it’s networked, creating cycles of harm and trauma that often impact multiple generations.”

Hyperlocal crime concentration is not a new phenomenon. In their foundational study about the relationship between crime and place, influential U.S. criminologists Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay show that crime rates remain stable in neighborhoods over time even as the demographic composition of residents change. They argue that structural conditions, such as physical deterioration and high population turnover, create the conditions for crime. This finding is critical for framing racial disparities in crime victimization because it shows that the structure of high-crime neighborhoods, not factors related to the race of their residents, allows crime to flourish.

A recent study demonstrates that the risk of firearm-related death or injury is more acute for young black and Latino men who live in certain zip codes than for U.S. soldiers who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Data suggest that victims of violent crime are four times as likely to experience repeat victimization. Additionally, both income and age predict victimization. People living in households that earn the lowest incomes (i.e., less than $25,000), are more likely to be victimized than their higher income counterparts.

Adolescents and young adults are also disproportionately likely to be victims of violent crime, regardless of geography. The relationship between age and being involved in crime, as both an offender and a victim, is one of the most enduring patterns in crime. There are no overall gender disparities in violent victimization. There are, however, gender disparities in experiencing certain kinds of violence. Men are more likely than women to be homicide victims. When women are murdered, however, they are five times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner.

Regardless of the severity of the crime, most victims of violent crime know the offender.

Data show that an individual who commits a violent offense is statistically at a higher risk of becoming a victim of a later violent crime. Violent crime victims are also more likely than others to engage in violence. Too often, however, this victim-offender overlap is ignored because it complicates the false narrative of the “good victim/bad offender” dichotomy.