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Murder Rates Escalated Across The U.S. In 2020

Published September 28, 2021 at 1:40 PM EDT
Police gather at the scene of a quadruple fatal shooting in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Police gather at the scene of a quadruple fatal shooting in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)

The number of murders in the U.S. increased nearly 30% in 2020, according to new FBI data.

It’s the highest one-year increase since record-keeping began in 1960. The number of murders is still far below what it was in the early 1990s.

Here & Now‘s Tonya Mosley talks to Richard Rosenfeld, criminologist and emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri St. Louis, about what’s behind this spike and how it compares to the surging violent crime rate of the 1990s.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.