Murder rates rise 10 percent across America’s liberal cities: report

Daily Mail reports that murder rates have shot up another 10 percent across 45 cities, with experts citing the cause of the increase due to soft-on-crime policies and the war on police, a recent study from WalletHub shows.

"Alarmingly, homicide rates have risen by an average of roughly 10% in 45 of the most populated U.S. cities between Q1 2021 and Q1 2023, and are still rising," the study analysis notes.

According to the study, Memphis, New Orleans, Richmond, Washington DC, Detroit, Durham, Dallas. Milwaukee, Las Vegas and Kansas City ranked as America's worst homicide hotspots after comparing data from the first three months of 2023, to 2022 and 2021. New York City ranked 36, while Los Angeles came in at 38.

"In order to determine which cities have the biggest homicide rate problems, WalletHub compared 45 of the largest U.S. cities based on per capita homicides in Q1 2023, as well as per capita homicides in Q1 2023 vs. Q1 2022 and Q1 2021," was cited as the study's methodology.

University of Central Missouri Professor Gregg Etter, with the Department of Criminal Justice, says that the recent spike in homicides are a result of left-wing politicians trying to appeal to the activist class by vilifying police instead of working towards effective long term solutions.

"The solutions the politicians often seek are to gain favor with one or more political interest groups in upcoming elections. If you have a problem with police use of force in isolated instances, rather than deal the problem or the problem officers, defund the police," Etter said. "This results in a less-effective police force, increased response times, lower police morale, and an increasing unwillingness by the police to engage in proactive policing (“the Ferguson Effect”). This has left many police forces in a strictly reactive mode, only responding to crimes that have already occurred."

Professor Etter then called out activist prosecutors that put repeat offenders back out onto the streets.

"In addition, no-cash bail rulings have put many dangerous criminals back onto the streets even though they are arrested several times for violent crimes. In cities where these two things are happening, the crime rate has spiked. You have less police officers and more dangerous criminals at large," Etter explained.

Etter says that it is imperative for cities to refund their police departments.