Washington: Homicides and aggravated assaults have declined significantly in recent decades in the United States though their levels remain high with 44 killings every day across the country, researchers said.
The homicide rate has more than halved between its peak in 1980 and 2013, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
But that still leaves 16,000 killings in the US annually, or 44 each day, and homicide remains the leading cause of death for non-Hispanic blacks in the country, the study said. The decline in homicide rates — down from its 1980 peak of 10.7 per 100,000 people to 5.1 per 100,000 in 2013 — might not be sticking either: this year has seen a surge in homicides in several major US cities.
Washington has already tallied 87 murders in 2015, compared to 69 by the same time last year. In nearby Baltimore there were 45 homicides in July, the highest total for that month since 1972.
Police chiefs from major cities met in Washington on Monday to discuss this recent escalation in violence and to find ways to stem it. The JAMA study also found a near-halving of aggravated assault rates. Those incidents, including child abuse and neglect, decreased from 442 to 242 per 100,000 people between 1992 and 2012.
Included in the current total are more than 12 million adults who suffer intimate partner violence and more than 10 million children who experience abuse each year. Only a small fraction of such cases are reported to police or doctors, according to the study, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr Steven Sumner.
His team also found that violence has more than a physical impact, as exposure to physical abuse in childhood is associated with a 54 percent increase in the odds of developing depression, 78 percent increase in the odds of sexually transmitted illness or risky sexual behaviour and 32 percent increase in developing obesity.AFP
