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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

There were 287 homicides in Newark in 2020, up from 234 in 2019. That's 53 more lives lost, a shocking 23% increase.

How related are these two facts? I don't know, but if you're going to come at this with "completely unrelated" I question your honesty.

Source: https://www.nj.com/crime/2020/12/homicides-in-nj-soared-22-i...

Edit: apologies for not reading the source carefully, I was mislead by the search I used to retrieve it. That was for all of New Jersey, not Newark, where homicides have been flat (and that is unusual for the United States in general).

I'm pretty distracted today. Sorry about that.

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You're quoting stats for all of New Jersey, not just Newark.

This sentence is in your linked source:

"In Newark, the state’s most populous city, 51 homicides occurred in 2020 as of Dec. 30 — the same number the city had in 2019, officials said."

Which seems pretty notable. The most populous city is flat, while the state itself is up 23%.

Given the lack of commuters and total cancellation of sporting events limiting tourism, I’d expect a drop in overall crime of all kinds in Newark. A flat number with the lower flow of people isn’t necessarily a drop.

I don't know the reasons, but that wasn't the case for murder. Murders in US cities were almost universally up, by big numbers, in 2020. "Flat" for Newark was an actual accomplishment.

https://twitter.com/Crimealytics/status/1343950694672379905

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953254623/massive-1-year-rise...

Your cited source literally says the opposite:

> While Trenton and Paterson saw spikes this year, other cities like Newark and Jersey City haven’t seen much of a change.

2020 was by no means a typical year. A rise in domestic violence, perhaps? Still seems weird though.

https://www.statista.com/chart/23905/change-in-homicides-in-...

One of the big differences between the US and Europe. Violence is way down here, as the nightlife is pretty much gone because of the covid restrictions.

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