Posted on December 23, 2016

Chicago to Blame for National Spike In Murders, Violence, Study Says

Kelly Bauer, DNA Info, December 20, 2016

The city’s big uptick in murders this year is helping fuel a national spike, according to a study.

The national murder rate is expected to rise by 13.1 percent by the end of 2016, and nearly half of that comes just from Chicago, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice, which studied 30 of the country’s biggest cities to see how violence has changed this year. Other major cities, like New York and Baltimore, have seen murders fall.

And while the national overall crime rate is expected to remain about the same this year as it was in 2015, Chicago is projected to see a 9.1 percent increase, according to the report.

Chicago is the only major city in the country that will see “significant, back-to-back increases” in murder and violent crime, the report found.

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Shootings in Chicago are up nearly 50 percent this year compared to 2015, according to a DNAinfo analysis, and more than 720 people have been murdered this year.

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