Just the facts, ma'am!

A very useful post from Crime in the USA by Inquisitive Bird.  The subheading is A short primer and collection of basic descriptive facts.

As he indicates, this is not speculation or editorializing.  It is just a recitation of the facts.  

If one wishes to understand the causes of American crime, first and foremost it is vital to get a solid foundation of the basic descriptive facts. Theorizing about underlying causes is far more likely to go astray when one begins with an inaccurate understanding of reality. Thus, the goal of this post is not to delve deeply into the etiology of crime or complicated multivariate analyses, but instead equip the reader with a collection of the most important facts.

More could have been said about the reliability of the data.  In other words, especially compared to most Western European countries, the US has much more fragmented and/or incomplete crime data.  But we have enough for most purposes as long as we keep in mind the missing data.

All the information comports with my general knowledge but it is extremely useful to have it in one place.

A couple of observations.  

Alcohol and murder

I knew that alcohol (and drugs) and violence are generally correlated, but I did not appreciate the degree of correlation.

Of the homicide victims that were tested, 36.4% of blood tests were positive for alcohol (Table S7). When tested, victims often tested positive for other drugs such as cannabis, amphetamines, opioids, and cocaine. Other research has also found that 40-50% of homicide victims test positive for alcohol (Kuhns et al., 2011; Naimi et al., 2016), and similarly for homicide offenders (Kuhns et al., 2014).

A third to half of all murders involve alcohol!  Huh.  

Of course that raises the question, how many people, at any given moment, would test positive for alcohol.  Here is old data from 2009.  It is for randomly stopped drivers, conducted by NHTSA.  

The findings come from the latest roadside survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration based on breath, saliva, blood samples and questionnaires taken from randomly selected drivers in 300 locations around the United States. In 1973, 7.5 percent of drivers had a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher. (A level of .08 is above the legal limit in all 50 states.) In the latest survey, the percentage of people driving above the legal alcohol limit had fallen to 2.2 percent.

35-50% of murders involve alcohol whereas only 2.2% of the population registers significant alcohol at any point of day or night.  

Intimate Partner Violence

A hoary stereotype of TV police procedurals involving murders is "the husband did it."  Well, pretty much.  

The fraction of murder victims that is due to intimate partner violence is predictably higher for women than men. For 41% of female murder victims it is related to intimate partner violence, and 50% of female murder victims are killed by current or former spouse or intimate partner [8% for men]. The victim being killed in their own home is also more common for women (60%, vs 37% for men).

Four times as many men are killed as women.  Homicide victimization rates in 2021:

Sex: male, 12.7 per 100k; female, 2.9 per 100k.

Women are murdered rarely (2.9 versus 12.7), mostly at home (60% versus 37%) and primarily by current or former spouses/partners (50% versus 8%).  

All of that accords with general tropes but when put together, they nudge towards an additional insight I cannot quite put my finger on.  

I guess it is to do with the basic biology.  We are accustomed to viewing women as vulnerable owing to the morphological differences between men (taller, heavier, more muscle mass, more violent) and women.  

And that is absolutely true and reflected in the "murdered at home by spouses/partners" data.

I guess the conundrum is that the data shows men as being far more vulnerable and more randomly subject to violence beyond their control.  Four times more likely to be murdered.  Mostly killed outside their homes.  92% killed by someone other than a spouse/partner.  Indeed, two and half times more likely to be killed by a stranger.  

I guess maybe it is that the numbers say women should be concerned about violent danger because they are vulnerable and it comes from intimate sources (home and spouse/partner).  But the numbers also say men should be even more concerned because they are even more exposed to violent danger everywhere and from everyone.

And that isn't quite how we usually think about it.  

Mississippi Delta Violence

In American literature (for example Faulkner) and in American History (see Rising Tide by John M. Barry) there is a repeated theme of the dark, almost mystic violence of the Mississippi Delta.  It is a hard land, hot, prone to floods and disease, riven by inter and intra-racial violence.  

This map of murders sort of smacks you in the face with that image.  

Woof.