Marathon Pundit: Chicago's high murder rate: The numbers vs. New York

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Chicago's high murder rate: The numbers vs. New York

Writing for PJ Media, Richard Baehr lays out the numbers on Chicago's high murder rate.

Numbers don't lie:

New York has a population more than three times as large as Chicago's population: 8.175 million according to the 2010 Census, versus 2.696 million for Chicago. In New York, the number of murders in 2012 equates to 1 in every 19,747 residents. In Chicago, the rate is 1 murder for every 5,338 residents. If 2011 population data were used, the comparison would be even starker, since New York's population was estimated to have grown by 74,000 from 2010 to 2011, while Chicago's grew only 11,000 in that period.

If there is one number to think about, it is this: Chicago is 3.7 times more dangerous than New York when it comes to murder, which is obviously the most serious crime with which mayors and their police forces need to be concerned.

If Chicago had New York's murder rate, there would have been only 137 murders in the Windy City in 2012. On the other hand, if New York had Chicago’s murder rate there would have been 1,531 murders in the Big Apple in 2012.

If the murder rate comparison looks bad, the comparison of shooting statistics looks even worse. Chicago had twice as many shooting victims in 2012 as New York for a city less than a third the size; that means the shooting rate was more than six times higher in Chicago.