(The Center Square) — Several North Carolina cities rank among those with the highest increases in homicide rates in the United States over the last two years, according to a recent analysis.
The personal finance website WalletHub compared the homicide rates in the 50 largest cities in the U.S., and two in North Carolina ranked in the top third in a report released Wednesday.
Researchers assigned each city a total score out of 100, weighting half on homicides per capita in the third quarter of 2022, and half on the change in homicide rates over the last two years. The higher the score, the higher the rank.
Durham’s score of 32.07 ranked 26th nationwide, with its homicide rate increasing by 0.36 points since 2020 to a rate of 3.26 cases per 100,000 residents this year. The 2022 homicide rate ranked 25th overall.
Charlotte came in at 15th place with 41.40 points and a homicide rate per capita of 3.78 in 2022. That figure is up by 1.49 points over the last year and by 0.23 from 2020. Charlotte’s rate of increase since 2021 was the fifth highest in the country.
Raleigh ranked 14th overall in the WalletHub analysis with a score of 43. While the capital city’s per capita homicide rate stood in 26th place for 2022 at 3.19, increases in the rate over the last year, and last two years, ranked ninth and seventh, respectively.
Raleigh’s rate jumped by 1.06 since 2021 and by 1.28 since 2020, according to the analysis.
“The homicide rate is increasing rapidly in the U.S., so much so that President Joe Biden has made tackling the problem a priority and spoke in his State of the Union address about his plans to reduce violence,” the report read. “Alarmingly, homicide rates have risen by an average of nearly 10% in 50 of the most populated U.S. cites between Q3 2021 and Q3 2022, and are still rising.”
Kansas City, Missouri ranked in first place for the highest homicide rate increase with a score of 87.49. Kansas City ranked first in change in homicide cases per capita since 2021, jumping by 4.89, and first for change since 2020 at 2.04. The city’s homicide rate of 14.86 per 100,000 residents was the second highest in 2022.
Detroit placed second overall in the analysis with a score of 69.46, finishing third for its 2022 homicide rate of 13.24, while St. Louis came in third overall with a score of 58.88, posting the highest homicide rate per capita in the U.S. so far this year at 19.69.
Other cities in the top 10 include New Orleans, Milwaukee, Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Nashville, and Oakland.
Cities ranked at the bottom include Denver in last place with a rate of 1.96, followed by Chesapeake, Virginia; Madison, Wisconsin; Arlington, Texas; St. Petersburg, Florida; Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Tucson, Arizona; Dallas, Texas; Chandler, Arizona; and Fort Worth, Texas in 40th.
The analysis found a correlation between homicide rates and the mayor’s political party, with Democrat run cities ranking higher on the list. The average rank for cities with Democratic mayors was 24.86, compared to the average rank of cities with Republican mayors at 26.50, WalletHub reports.
