Overall Crime Went Down in 2020 - Even as the Murder Rate Soared
Why People Misperceive Crime Trends. (Chicago Is Not the Murder Capital.)
Nationwide, crime declined consistently for a quarter-century starting in the early 1990s. But for a large share of Americans, perceptions didn’t keep up with reality. In the quiz, only about four in 10 readers knew that the national murder rate last year was lower than the 1990 rate.

A Pew Research report in 2016 found that “voters are usually more likely to say crime is up than down, regardless of what official statistics show.” For decades, Gallup has asked people whether they think there is more or less crime in the U.S. compared with the year before. The question has been asked almost yearly since 1996, and every year except for 2001 the public — usually by overwhelming margins — has said crime has increased.

Some research shows that public demand drives coverage of bad news — that people have a “negativity bias,” a predisposition to focus on and remember negative information, possibly an evolutionary adaptation. In other words, people tend to be more interested in hearing about potential threats they can act upon, like an approaching hurricane, a new virus or a crime spree that has been reported nearby.

Why overall crime fell while murder increased

The rise in murder rate for 2020 is expected to be around 25 percent, the largest increase in U.S. history, in records dating to 1960. That equates to roughly 20,000 murders last year.

And yet overall crime went down, a fact that only 28 percent of readers knew. The F.B.I. will release its official figures in September, but the preliminary data from over 12,000 law enforcement agencies suggests it was probably one of the largest declines on record.

Property crime was down 7.9 percent in 2020 relative to 2019, according to this data. The national murder trend usually gets the headlines — for good reason — but property crime makes up around 85 percent of all major crimes reported by the F.B.I. Murder made up 0.2 percent of all major crimes reported by the F.B.I. in 2019, and even a historically large increase in murder would barely move the needle in terms of overall crime.

It’s not altogether surprising that overall crime would drop in 2020; it has fallen in 26 of the last 28 years, including each of the last 17 years. Since most crime is property crime, and since property crime can flourish when people need to be out and about — a shoplifter needs stores to be open, for example — nationwide quarantines and reduced mobility last year most likely contributed to reduced property crime pretty much everywhere. nytimes.com

Stores Keeping More Items 'Under Lock-and-Key'
Thefts up across US, retailers now locking up more items to prevent stealing

Retailers are deciding that even when staff members see thefts happen, confrontations just aren’t worth the risk.

New York resident Diane Crafford witnessed a theft at a Manhattan drug store where the thief was, “throwing everything into his backpack, going from shelf to shelf.” She said an employee told customers, “we have been informed that we are not allowed to stop them.”

Suspects apprehended after committing smash-and-grab thefts on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile last year were still wearing the stolen clothes, with price tags attached, according to police.

Smaller retailers say they’re getting hit by so many thefts they need to keep more items under lock-and-key. They’re also telling staff to just let the thefts happen as customers watch. Experts predict this could lead to big retail losses, raising costs which will be passed along to consumers.

The thefts add up to billions in losses every year. The National Retail Federation reports so-called retail “shrink” totaled $61.7 billion in 2019, up from $50.6 billion the year before. This is in large part because of increases in shoplifting and organized retail crime.

Loss prevention experts predict desperation, largely the result of the pandemic, will bring another double-digit increase in 2020. In San Francisco, out of control retail theft was cited by Walgreens as a major factor in the decision to close 17 stores in the last five years.

Zinser recalled one specific incident: “I remember standing in one of those Walgreens stores, watching just a customer walk in, pick up several things off the shelf and start to walk toward the door. And I told the guy, ‘that’s theft- you need to ring up with the cashier,’ he looked at me and said, ‘so?’ and walks out.” newsnationnow.com

Police Officer Murders Surging in 2021
Thirty-seven U.S. police officers were murdered in the first five months of 2021

As violent crime rises, so does the on-the-job risk for police officers. Forty-six were murdered in all of 2020.

With violent crime on the upswing across the nation, the number of police officers who have died violently in the line of duty is also spiking.

FBI Director Christopher Wray highlighted the issue in an appearance Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee. Wray said a total of 37 officers had been murdered in the first five months of 2021, compared with 46 during all of 2020.

“And that's not counting all those officers who've died in the line of duty facing the countless other inherent dangers of the job, like from a car accident in pursuit after a subject or drowning during an attempted rescue. Or even the scores of officers who've died from Covid-19. Because, of course, law enforcement kept coming to work every day despite the pandemic.”

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 148 police officers have died of all causes so far in 2021, up from 134 this time last year. Traffic deaths, in particular, have risen 42 percent, according to those statistics.

Police deaths mirror the increase in violent crime across the country. There were 56 shootings of four or more people in May, the highest number of mass shootings of any month since the Gun Violence Archive, a research nonprofit, started tracking the data in 2013. Homicides are up by 20 percent or more in cities large and small. nbcnews.com

Flaws in How the FBI Reports Active Shooter Incidents?
“Serious Errors” In FBI Reports Of Shooting Incidents
Dr. John Lott, Jr. of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) recently released a paper written while he was a Senior Advisor for Research and Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy.

His paper, Corrections to the FBI’s Reports on Active Shooting Incidents (May 31, 2021), examines the FBI’s previously released reports on “active shooter incidents” (ASI). The FBI defines an “active shooter” as one or more individuals attempting to kill or killing other people in a populated area. “Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of one or more firearms. The ‘active’ aspect of the definition inherently implies the ongoing nature of the incidents, and thus the potential for the response to affect the outcome.”

The FBI published its initial report in 2014, titled A Study of Active Shooter Incidents Between 2000-2013, using information from “104 police department records, after action reports, shooting commission reports, open sources, and FBI resources.” Since then, the agency has published additional annual or bi-annual reports.

According to Dr. Lott, “all five reports so far issued were found to have serious errors.” These distort the trend of attacks over time and the evidence on factors that may be important in curtailing attacks in the future.

The premise of the FBI’s initial report was that a drastic increase in ASIs occurred between 2000 and 2013, escalating from one incident in 2000 to 17 in 2013. However, Dr. Lott’s paper indicates that the FBI failed to include twenty incidents in that time span, and that these “missing cases were three times more likely to have occurred from 2000-2006 than from 2007-2013, thus exaggerating the increase that was widely reported on.”

Once these cases are included and placed in the context of pre-2000 data, it becomes evident that there “has only been a slight, statistically insignificant upward trend over the 38 years from 1977 through 2014,” and even this slight uptick is due to high numbers in a single year (2012). dailycaller.com

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Interrogation Deception Ban Passes in Oregon
Deception Bill Passes Oregon Legislature, Banning Police from Lying
to Youth During Interrogations

Oregon is the second state to pass a bill banning police from using deceptive interrogation tactics, following Illinois.

On Tuesday, Oregon became the second state to pass legislation prohibiting law enforcement officers from using deception while interrogating people under the age of 18. The bill bans commonly used deceptive interrogation tactics, including false promises of leniency and false claims about the existence of incriminating evidence. Both of these tactics have long been identified as significantly increasing the risk of false confessions, which have played a role in about 30% of all wrongful convictions overturned by DNA. False confessions are also the most frequent contributing factor in wrongful conviction cases involving homicides. And recent studies suggest that children under 18 are between two and three times more likely to falsely confess than adults.

This legislation would encourage law enforcement members to adopt alternative interrogation techniques commonly used in countries, like the United Kingdom, where deceptive tactics have long been abandoned. These alternative methods have proven far more effective in producing reliable confessions from suspects. Yet, the vast majority of police agencies in the United States currently employ the psychologically coercive, but legally permissible, interrogation techniques that this bill would prevent when interrogating juveniles in Oregon.

“Lying in an interrogation is hypocritical and contradictory to the development of rapport, a core component in ethical and successful investigative interviews”, said Dave Thompson, CFI, and President of Wicklander-Zulawski. “Oregon is helping lead the way in the evolution of interrogation standards with the passing of this bill. This continues the trend of investigators seeking non-confrontational, research-based techniques to resolve cases while mitigating the risk of false confessions and improving trust within community-police relationships.” innocenceproject.org

NRF: 'We Are Confident' about Long-Term Retail Recovery
May Retail Sales Reach Near-Record Level Despite Monthly Decline
Retail sales remained at elevated levels in May despite month-to-month fluctuations that masked near-record performance, the National Retail Federation said today.

“While May retail sales were down slightly, largely due to supply chain constraints, the more accurate indicator remains in the year-over-year data which, as the NRF calculates, showed growth of over 17 percent,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “For the first five months of this year, retail sales are already tracking 17.6 percent above the same five months of 2020, giving us further confidence in our newly revised sales forecast of growth between 10.5 percent and 13.5 percent to more than $4.44 trillion for 2021. While there are downside risks related to labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks, tax increases and over-regulation, overall, households are healthier, and consumers are demonstrating their ability and willingness to spend. We are confident.”

“Month-over-month comparisons and percentages of change simply don’t tell the story,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said. “We are at a highly elevated level of spending, with dollar amounts in recent months some of the highest we’ve ever seen. Long-term trends in the number of dollars spent tell much more about the continuing economic recovery than whether sales were up or down from month to month. Retail sales as calculated by NRF were the second highest on record in May, topped only by holiday spending in December. Demand has continued to be strong even as the concentrated impact from government stimulus has faded. There is still pent-up demand for retail goods and consumers are likely to remain on a growth path into the summer.” nrf.com

Retail Rents Tied to Sales Becoming Commonplace
Covid-19 Rent Breaks for Retailers Are Becoming the New Norm

Leases tying rent to a portion of sales look poised to outlast the pandemic

During the worst of the pandemic, many landlords offered deals where ailing retailers paid a percentage of their monthly sales in rent—rather than a fixed amount—to help them survive. Now, this once temporary way of charging tenants looks poised to outlast Covid-19.

More shopping-center owners are signing new leases where rent is tied directly to a portion of sales, at least for a period. These percentage-rent leases are especially attractive to newer retailers, offering some flexibility so that they aren’t saddled with large losses as they are starting out.

While most landlords tend to prefer the reliability of a fixed monthly rent payment, the wider use of percentage leases reflects how much retail has become a renters’ market.

Many retail businesses have struggled with competition from e-commerce, then took another blow when they faced pandemic-related lockdowns. Some didn’t survive, leaving landlords with excess space and compelling shopping-center owners to offer generous terms just to fill it. wsj.com

Google's Move to Brick-and-Mortar
A look inside Google’s first-ever permanent store
Customers can get up close and personal with the latest Google devices and services at the tech giant’s first-ever physical store.

The store, which opens June 16, in located in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, and is housed in the 1.2 million sq.-ft. building that is home to Google’s New York City offices. The space has an Apple Store-like vibe and invites hand-on interaction with Google services — from Google Search to Google Maps and more — and its growing lineup of devices, including Pixel phones, Nest products, Fitbit wearables and Pixelbooks. A gallery-styled wall displays 35 Nest products in their full range of colors and materials.

Google’s move to brick-and-mortar retail comes as it has been increasing its hardware lineup. Early this year, the company closed on its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit. chainstoreage.com

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