Murder rates have surged; Are they here to stay?

IRVINE, Calif. - Violent crime is on the rise everywhere and California cities are no exception. 

Everything from follow-home robberies, to assault, to murder. It’s worrisome, as people still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown finally venture out again. It’s also the holiday season so there are parties to attend and shopping to be done. 

Only now, families are facing a growing danger – crime in the streets.

Could it be that this spike is the "new normal?" 

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I spoke to Dr. Elliott Currie, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. Currie is a prolific author. His acclaimed works focus on crime and criminal justice. His book, Crime and Punishment in America was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

We met at the university, in the most tranquil of settings talking about spiking murder rates in California. Currie said communities of color have been hit the hardest. 

"The places it’s happening the most and the people affected are the same places and people pretty much hurt by the violence," he explained.

Currie said he believed the biggest catalyst for the current crime wave was driven by people being out of work during the pandemic. He was hopeful as more and more people went back to work the murder rate would drop. 

"Whether it continues depends on what we do to get jobs back," he said.

But on the subject of guns on the streets, he sounded much more pessimistic. 

He described "a flood of guns into volatile, high-risk communities, and I don’t see it turning around."

Currie adds, "If you look at the data, it’s overwhelmingly, this homicide spike, gun homicide."

Professor Currie’s books include A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America and Reckoning: Drugs, the Cities, and the American Future.