Detroit City Wire

A spike in violent crime across America is a troubling trend that has struck Michigan as well, especially in minority communities.

Some analysts believe progressive left policies could be to blame for the record-high crime statistics. 

There were 478 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in Michigan in 2020, according to The Center Square. The number rose by 9.3% in 2021, almost double the national increase of 5%. It appears that crime in the Wolverine State is concentrated in certain cities, Detroit included, where there were 1,088 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in 2020. The Detroit metro area accounted for almost 40% of 47,641 violent crimes in the state in 2020.

"The nation's large cities are so swamped by horrific crime and violence that police, criminologists, and a few honest, elected Democrats are finally conceding the obvious: the progressive movement, including Black Lives Matter, that ostensibly aimed to protect minority racial groups by defunding the police and coddling criminals, backfired big-time," Michael Goodwin, a columnist for the New York Post, wrote in an opinion piece published in mid-April.

While other cities have continued to deal with high crime rates in 2022, officials have credited Detroit Police Chief James White's leadership for a double-digit decrease in violent crime in the first four months of 2022. Detroit's homicide rate dropped 20% this year when compared to the same time period in 2021, according to WXYZ. The drop in crime is most evident in southwest Detroit; at this point last year, there had been eight homicides, while so far this year, only one has occurred.

On a national level, more African Americans were murdered than Caucasians in 2020. Some experts attribute the disproportionate murder statistics largely to the Defund the Police movement, according to Fox News.

Statistics from the FBI's Crime Data Explorer showed that in 2020, 9,941 Black Americans were murdered compared to 7,043 white Americans.

In his recent opinion piece, Goodwin acknowledged that the increase in crime was most pronounced for minority groups, and the same held true when analyzing a decline in crime. "The people the progressives claimed to be helping actually were harmed by the anti-police, pro-criminal policies," he said. 

MLive reported that more than one-fourth of Michigan's minority population lives in Detroit; 78% of Detroiters are African American. 

With approximately six months left until the midterm elections, a Vox article predicted that crime will be a defining factor for many Democratic candidates in local and statewide races. Vox reported that violent crime was up in 2021 from previous years; 27 cities saw a 44% homicide increase in 2020 and a 5% increase in 2021.