42% of murders occurred in only 1% of the counties

Despite the high number of murders, many parts of the country don't have the same problem with crime. A study conducted by the Crime Prevention Research Center revealed that in 2020, only 1% of counties had serious problems with homicides, making up 42% of the investigations recorded nationwide. On the other hand, more than half of the counties, 52%, did not have a single case involving individual deaths at the hands of another person.

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That 1% that did have to deal with homicide investigations represents a total of 32 counties that, according to the report, are home to 21% of the U.S. population. In addition, the report revealed that 5% of the counties account for more than 70% of the murders recorded in the country. However, these regions are not even home to half of the nation's population, but rather 47% of the nation's inhabitants. On the other hand, the 52% of counties that fortunately did not record any homicides are home to 10% of the U.S. population. In addition, in 68% of the counties, where 18% of the population lives, only one murder investigation was recorded.

Increase in the percentage of murders

The report's author, John R. Lott Jr. notes that there was an increase in the homicide rate between 2014 and 2020. The researcher recalls that between 2010 and 2014 the percentage of homicides in the top 5% of the most dangerous counties had dropped from 71% to 69%. The latest analysis indicated that it had risen four percentage points, to 73%.

Just the News reported that the county with the most cases of homicides in 2020 was Cook County, Illinois, with 775. It is followed by Los Angeles County, California, with 691 homicides. The top five counties most likely to be homicide-prone include Harris County in Texas, with 537 cases; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 495 murders and New York City (including the Bronx, Kings, New York and Richmond neighborhoods) which recorded 465 homicides in 2020.

The good news is that 56% of these cases took place in 2% of the counties, while the figure is reduced to 42% if we only look at 1% of these areas. The study, John R. Lott, Jr. concludes, leads him to conclude that homicides aren't "a nationalwide problem," but "it's a problem in a small set of urban areas and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders."