It would hardly be called “bragging,” but a report at Mlive.com says Michigan has “four of the top 20 most violent cities in the nation, including Saginaw, Detroit, Kalamazoo and Lansing.”
The story says Saginaw last year bypassed Detroit as the city in Michigan with the highest violent crime rate, but a look at the raw statistics still places the Motor City at the top of the heap when it comes to the actual body count. Using data from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2021, which was released just days ago, the report notes Detroit logged 303 homicides last year, while Saginaw only posted 14. The rate is determined by matching the crime data with the population. Saginaw has a much smaller population, so it wins—or loses as this case suggests—in the race to be “Number One” in crime rates.
For the second year in row however, the new platform used by the FBI to publish its annual crime report is user-unfriendly. Perhaps this is why, according to Mlive.com, “The FBI crime data is incomplete. Major cities, like Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles, didn’t report. Approximately 63% of all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. shared their crime data with the FBI. Michigan fared much better than the national average, with 95%, 618 of 653 agencies, reporting their data.”
The story also revealed, “The number of crimes in Michigan increased at a more rapid pace than the national average. The total number of violent crimes in Michigan increased 4.7%, while the number of property crimes increased 5.8%. Statewide, homicides decreased 6.3%, from 660 in 2020 to 618 in 2021.”
While Detroit produced more murders last year, the data also shows Flint with 37 slayings and Lansing with 25.
Why didn’t Chicago report? Perhaps a look at the website HeyJackass.com provides an answer. Last year, the popular website’s data shows, the Windy City logged 854 murders including 798 involving firearms. Another 3,745 were wounded.
Overall, according to a report at TIME, “Violent crimes that included the use of a firearm decreased by around 5% in 2021, while the number of people arrested with a firearm was mostly unchanged…FBI data suggests police also solved fewer crimes in 2021, with the clearance rate dropping about 3% for both violent crime and property crime.”
