Jobless men, bored teens linked to pandemic homicide jump
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A group called Stop Killing Us rallied outside Philadelphia's city hall to call attention to a jump in homicides on April 21, 2020. Photo: Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images
New data suggest that the homicide surge of 2020 was driven largely by men and teen boys who were either laid off or saw their schools close during pandemic shutdowns.
Why it matters: Record spikes in homicides during the COVID-19 crisis puzzled officials, and some blamed social unrest and mass protests. But a Brookings Institution analysis reviewed by Axios indicates that alienated men and youths, especially in low-income areas, likely were behind the jump.
Catch up quick: U.S. cities saw their homicide rates surge by an average of nearly 30% in 2020, the biggest year-over-year jump in recorded U.S. history.
- Homicide rates ticked up for two more years until 2023, when rates started to plummet. Early numbers show the national homicide rate in 2024 is on track to return to pre-pandemic levels.
- President-elect Trump cited rising crime (while crime was declining) during his campaign, and falsely blamed immigrants for the pandemic-era jump in homicides.
Zoom in: The Brookings findings were based on thousands of police records before and after the 2020 homicide surge.
- Cities with larger numbers of young men forced out of work and teen boys pushed out of school in low-income neighborhoods in March and early April 2020 averaged greater increases in homicides from May to December that year than other areas, the analysis found.
- Unemployment and truancy also help explain why homicides remained high in 2021 and 2022 and then fell in late 2023 and 2024, the analysis found.
Zoom out: Almost all the neighborhoods with the highest homicide rates were places where at least 30% of the residents lived below the poverty line, which in 2020 was about $26,200 in income for a household of four.
- By mid-April 2020, young men laid off because of the pandemic and high school boys whose schools were shut down made up about 1 in 30 of those living in low-income neighborhoods, Brookings found.
- Many of the men had worked for restaurants and hotels, industries and the pandemic disproportionally hit them, the report found.
- Many students pushed out of school often didn't have access to high-speed internet for online classes.
- The Brookings report analyzed data in three dozen of the nation's largest cities.
The intrigue: The report did not look at women and teen girls as they weren't drivers of violence during a pandemic that caused devastation across the country.
What they're saying: "You had this combined effect of places where crimes always existed, and then this massive influx of young boys who were out of school and young men who were out of work all at the same time," Rhett Morris, co-author of the report, tells Axios.
- Rohit Acharya, another co-author of the report, said many of the homicide hot spots identified in the analysis tended to have few mental health resources or community centers.
The report recommends that communities invest in more mental health services and violence prevention programs while developing intervention programs for men who've committed acts of violence.
What we're watching: The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) is expected to release its preliminary 2024 crime stats from major cities next month.
- Early estimates suggest it will show another drop in homicides.
