When it comes to homicides in Seattle and King County, the numbers are disturbing.
There were 33 homicides in Seattle in 2019. In the rest of King County, there were 40 more the same year.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the numbers of homicides in the county and Seattle have ticked up (2021 was an exception).
Though the overall U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 — the largest single year increase in more than 90 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control — Seattle’s increase for those years was 60%, double the national rate. King County, excluding Seattle, saw a 50% increase over the same years.
It would be easy for law enforcement or society in general to blame the increase in the number of lives lost through violence — overwhelmingly by firearms — to the pandemic. Concurrent with increasing homicides during the pandemic was an increase in the open use of drugs, and a loss of jobs and incomes. There is evidence to support an increase in theft and robberies because of the pandemic, but homicide is a more complicated and rarer crime.
An obvious factor in the rise in homicides is the availability of guns. In Seattle, police have said they are seeing more rounds fired in each shooting incident in recent years than in years before and have confiscated more guns in recent years.
Dan Clark, a King County chief criminal deputy prosecutor, is correct: There’s no single reason for the increase in homicides, as he said to Seattle Times reporter Sara Jean Green, “so it doesn’t lend itself to one solution.”
Possible solutions are varied and many have been tested. Any lasting solutions must involve partnerships between law enforcement, community organizations, businesses and residents.
Police in Seattle, as in other cities, know violence is concentrated among small sets of individuals and certain locations. The Seattle Police Department collects data on where shootings occur. This data should be shared with violence-prevention organizations and should also influence policing decisions.
Community policing also works. King County and Seattle should emphasize partnerships between members of law enforcement and neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by violence, where police-residents relationships are sometimes strained.
Partnerships should also exist with public school districts that can help law enforcement and anti-violence outreach workers stay informed. Educators and counselors can sometimes spot trouble as it begins to percolate which, if unaddressed, can manifest itself outside of school.
The business community can do its part as well by offering employment in communities that are economically challenged and to returning ex-offenders to help reduce recidivism.
But reducing violence and homicides should begin at the top. Mayors, county executives and top law enforcement agents must make preventing violence part of the office they hold.
That’s why the recently announced planned creation of the White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention offers promise. As reported by The Trace, the new office created by President Joe Biden’s executive action will, among other things, work with state lawmakers to increase and enhance background checks for gun buyers; offer federal help with mental health care and financial support to survivors of gun violence and communities mostly impacted; and offer support for community-based violence prevention efforts.
The homicide numbers are indeed scary, but Seattle and King County have tools to reverse those numbers. Making that happen will start with those who call themselves leaders.
The post Reducing violence and homicides begins at the top first appeared on Latest American News.
The post Reducing violence and homicides begins at the top appeared first on Latest American News.