Report: Violent homicide rate in Mississippi surged over three-year span

(The Heart Sq.) – Whereas Mississippi’s murder fee is greater than the nationwide common the state’s total violent crime fee sits under the nationwide common, one public coverage group mentioned.

Empower Mississippi’s new crime report, “Violent Crime in Mississippi: A Knowledge-Supported Evaluation and Proof-Based mostly Options,” highlights crime knowledge from the FBI and displays that the violent murder fee within the state has elevated 66% from 2017 to 2020.

The report, based on the discharge, discusses the potential causes which can be behind crime spikes and offers coverage options designed to cut back incidents of violent crime. Current legal justice reforms should not the reason for the spikes.

“Crime impacts everybody, immediately or not directly, and everybody needs to be involved about it,” Empower Mississippi Senior Advisor Forest Thigpen mentioned in a launch. “Households, church buildings, communities, and, in fact, authorities all have roles in addressing it. To try this, we have to begin with the details, and that’s what this report is meant to do.”

To deal with violent crime, Empower Mississippi recommends:

• Correctly funding regulation enforcement to draw, pay, and practice officers.

• Give attention to restricted law-enforcement sources for essentially the most critical offenses.

• Addressing psychological well being and habit points.

• Getting ready these incarcerated with job and life expertise and psychological or habit therapy whereas in jail.

In keeping with the discharge, the murder fee in Jackson doubled over a span of three years. The town, in 2020, accounted for six% of the state’s inhabitants however had 52% of homicides in Mississippi.

The report says the violent crime fee, together with rape, aggravated assault, and theft on prime of murder, in 2020 was 27% decrease than the nationwide fee. The speed was decrease than eight different states within the area.

In 2019, based on the report, Mississippi’s violent crime fee was decrease than it was originally of the last decade. The sharp improve in 2020 was credited to inflicting the 8% improve for the last decade.

“We additionally want public coverage options which can be primarily based in proof, not simply ones that sound correct on the floor,” Thigpen mentioned within the launch. “In any other case, we spend lots of taxpayers’ cash and don’t really cut back violent crime.”

The report, based on the discharge, targeted on current legal justice reforms that have been legislatively accepted.

“What we discovered was that each one states skilled spikes in homicides in 2020, together with people who applied justice reforms just like these handed by Mississippi and people who didn’t,” Thigpen mentioned within the launch. “In truth, essentially the most important will increase in violent crime in our area occurred in two states that haven’t enacted legal justice reforms.”

In keeping with the discharge, the state has the very best incarceration fee within the nation. A brand new report from the state’s Division of Corrections reveals the quantity incarcerated is greater than it was in 2019, two years following the passage of a parole reform invoice. Nevertheless, in 2021, drug and nonviolent crimes accounted for almost two-thirds of the state’s jail inhabitants.