The number of murders rose 8.6 percent nationwide in 2016, according to the FBI’s newest round of crime statistics, released Monday. There were an estimated 17,250 murders last year, up from 15,883 in 2015. The murder rate also rose for a second straight year, but it’s still roughly where it was in 2008, far below the levels of the 1980s and early 1990s. Meanwhile, the share of murders committed with a firearm rose to a record high.
The findings are from the FBI’s 2016 Uniform Crime Reporting program, which gives the first official data on last year’s national crime trends. The UCR shows the number of murders increasing nationally for the second straight year in 2016. But the other crimes measured by UCR did not change nearly as much: The number of of violent crimes overall (which includes murders) rose 4.1 percent from 2015 to 2016, and the number of property crimes, such as burglary, fell 1.3 percent, to a low not seen in more than 40 years.
The uptick in murders in 20164 comes on the heels of a double-digit percentage increase in 2015 that was the largest jump in a quarter-century. That said, the nation’s overall murder rate in 2016 was 5.3 per 100,000 people, 48 percent below its peak, in 1980.
Early indications from roughly the middle of 2017 show the number of murders up a few percentage points in big cities; that could mean — based on how cities and the nation overall typically compare — either a small increase or a small drop nationally this year, although it’s too early to say for sure.