Research: Republican Run States Have a Much Higher Murder Rate than Blue States

If you spend any time watching Fox News you would think that the murder rate was only a problem in large cities in Blue states. That narrative is simply false. In fact, you have a far greater chance of being murdered in Red states than Blue states. Consider this for a second; the homicide rate in GOP-dominated Mississippi is 20.5 murders per 100,000 residents, while very liberal Massachusetts has a per capita murder rate of 2.4, and it isn't even the safest Blue state in New England. And other progressive bastions like New York and New Jersey are also quite safe compared to almost anywhere in the former confederacy.

You can glean all these statistics from the Centers For Disease Control's [CDC] latest homicide report or a newly published article by the Third Way organization that relied on state crime reports and other inputs. The Third Way data sets show that per capita murder rates are 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden, and 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates are dominated by the GOP.

Republicans and their conservative media allies are quick to point out the increase in homicides in cities like Chicago, but statistics show that murder isn't only an urban problem.

The Third Way.org: "many of the states with the worst murder rates—like Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Arkansas—are ones that few would describe as urban. Only 2 of America’s top 100 cities in population are located in these high murder rate states. And not a single one of the top 10 murder states registers in the top 15 for population density."

In recent years, conservatives have used the murder rates of some large cities to argue that Democrats are soft on crime and that police reform efforts undermine law enforcement. But homicide rates in cities and states that haven't implemented any sort of police reform and are run by conservatives tell quite a different story.

The Third Way: "The increase in murders is not a liberal cities problem but a national problem. Murder rates are actually higher in Republican, Trump-voting states that haven’t even flirted with ideas like defund the police. Eight of the ten most lawless, high-murder states are not only Trump-voting states, but GOP bastions for the last quarter of a century. A more accurate conclusion from the data is that Republicans do a far better job blaming others for high murder rates than actually reducing high murder rates."

#research #crime

By: Don Lam & Curated Content