評論
打印
United States
美國版塊
Crime statistics
犯罪統計
Few signs of a surge
幾乎無激增跡象
Despite a recent uptick in violence, fears that America is experiencing a serious crime wave are overblown
盡管最近的美國暴力事件有小幅增加，但是人們對美國正經歷嚴重犯罪浪潮的擔憂被夸大了。
The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25th has sparked large anti-racist protests in cities across America. “Defund the police”, a call to reallocate some of the money spent on law enforcement to other services, is becoming a mainstream slogan on the left. President Donald Trump claims that the “anti-police crusade…has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.” On July 22nd he announced he would send a surge of federal agents to police big cities, including Chicago and Albuquerque (although those that had been deployed in Portland, Oregon, are starting to leave.)
5月25日，明尼阿波利斯的一名警察跪殺了喬治·弗洛伊德，這一事件導致美國各城市爆發了大規模的反種族主義抗議活動。“撤資警察”成為了激進左派的一個主流口號，該口號旨在呼吁將用于執法的部分資金重新分配給其他部門。總統唐納德·特朗普聲稱，“這場反警察運動……發生了令人震驚的槍擊、殺戮和令人發指的暴力犯罪。”7月22日，特朗普宣布將派遣大批聯邦探員前往芝加哥，阿爾伯克基地區等警察多的城市，（盡管部署在俄勒岡州波特蘭市的聯邦探員正在開始撤離。）
But the evidence that America is experiencing a major crime wave is mixed at best. Official national crime statistics, compiled by the FBI, are generally published with over a year’s delay, so researchers have to turn to other sources. David Abrams of the University of Pennsylvania, pulls together data from some two dozen major cities on citycrimestats.com. His figures show that so far this year crime is actually down by around 10% compared with the same period in 2015-19.
但是能夠表明美國正在經歷一場嚴重犯罪浪潮的證據十分混雜。美國聯邦調查局編制的官方國家犯罪統計數據通常要推遲一年才能公布，因此研究人員不得不轉向其他數據來源。賓夕法尼亞大學的大衛·阿勃拉姆斯收集了來自20多個主要城市的數據發布在citycrimestats.com網站上。他的數據顯示，今年到目前為止，犯罪率實際上比2015-19年同期下降了10%左右。
It is possible that this drop is simply an artefact of reporting. Covid-19 has meant fewer people on the streets, hence fewer potential witnesses who might call the police. However, Mr Abrams notes that the share of police stops which have resulted in arrests has not changed, which suggests that the drop in crime is genuine. It seems even drug dealers have been adhering to social-distancing guidelines.
犯罪率的下降可能只是一種人為的報道。新冠肺炎意味著街上的人更少，因此可能報警的潛在證人也會更少。然而，阿勃拉姆斯指出，進行拘留的警察局的數量沒有改變，這表明犯罪率確實在下降。似乎連毒販都在遵守社會距離準則。
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