Sunday, January 1, 2012

2011 Homicides

With 197 homicides this year, Baltimore has had its lowest homicide total since 1977. Fenton from the Sun reports on the near-jubilance of public officials over this under-200 year.

Last year we had 223 homicides,
2008 was 234;
2007 was 291;
2006 was 274;
2005 was 269.
We've blogged 1,487 murders.

Here is the complete listing of 2011's 197 victims:

197.  Phylicia Barnes, 16, 6500 Eberle Dr. Found: (4/20/11) Added: (04/26/12)


  • 196. Tiyon Campbell, 31, 2800 block of W. Garrison (12/28)
  • 9 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Before we get too jubilant, let me pose a question:


    Historically, the lion's share of Charm City's murders have been thought to be committed by one criminal against another.

    That being the case, the principal effect of lowering the homicide rate is to make illegal enterprise in Baltimore less hazardous and, therefore, more attractive.

    The appropriately-framed question for quality of life is more

    "Of the murders committed against relatively innocuous persons in a given year, by how much have they decreased relative to some reference year?"

    That is, how much safer is it now for your average law-abiding working stiff than it was in such year?

    (another case in which you cannot simply obtain the crisp stats as neither shooters nor shootees generally care to disclose their activities to the Po-Po)

    I would conjecture that this by measure things are not much better. Sort of like how a dramatic reduction in ODs by employing bupe doesn't really improve my mortality rate unless I'm a user, which I'm not.

    Cham said...

    There are people still left on the earth that don't wish for people to be killed regardless of their criminal past, there are people not obsessed with safety and paranoia. Since I am one of those people my quality of life has improved because fewer people have been killed.

    For the 'good riddance' crowd, I could see why they'd be in doldrums.

    Maurice Bradbury said...

    Thanks for tracking the toll this year, TAB! It takes a lot of diligence. And no matter how cynical one might be, this number is simply amazing. That's like two city buses full of people.

    I suppose if one wanted to and one had a lot of spare time, one could cross-check these victims against the judiciary case search. (or even just 100 of them for a statistical sample.) And then compare that sample to 100 people from last year. I know I don't have that kind of drive, but maybe someone out there in blogland does...

    Anonymous said...

    The problem with judiciary case search is the tremendous volume of uncharged offenses. Case search will only show you the 'best' cases the BCPD had to present, a function more of evidence than of guilt.

    Then you have the question of what to do with Null Pros, Stets, and Drug Diversion for simple CDS possession. Should you consider those people criminal or innocent as a matter of default?

    But it might be instructive to somehow take a randomized subsample, just to see how the numbers go. Maybe I'll do that.

    Anyone care to request the police 911 call volume from BCPD Planning & Research from 2008 to 2011 ???


    - Galt

    TAB said...

    No problem, glad to help out. I'll probably give that sample idea a shot, compare 2011 to 2010 and 2007, when homicides were quite high.

    Look for it(hopefully)this evening.

    Anonymous said...

    Does anyone know many deaths in 2011 have categorized as "Undetermined"?

    Anonymous said...

    How many "attempted murders" were there? We do live in one of the best areas for hospitals in the world!

    Cham said...

    I was very loosely keeping track of who had criminal histories and who didn't, but during zero tolerance more than a few had charge for stupid stuff like open containers and loitering. Are they criminals or not? It's the last column of my big list for 2011. I'm stuck on Shirley Garrett, while in her early 60s she took somebody's car without permission, should she be a criminal?

    Maurice Bradbury said...

    Hi non: "non-fatal shootings are down markedly, with 381 people being shot and surviving, compared with 725 in 2000" and as of Dec 1, says chief ME David Fowler, there were 154 "manner of death undetermined"s (compare with 331 in 2007; 220 in 2008; 268 in 2009; 182 in 2010).