2020年经济学人 美国犯罪数据激增?(1)（在线收听）

United States

美国版块

Crime statistics

犯罪统计

Few signs of a surge

几乎无激增迹象

Despite a recent uptick in violence, fears that America is experiencing a serious crime wave are overblown

尽管最近的美国暴力事件有小幅增加，但是人们对美国正经历严重犯罪浪潮的担忧被夸大了。

The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25th has sparked large anti-racist protests in cities across America. “Defund the police”, a call to reallocate some of the money spent on law enforcement to other services, is becoming a mainstream slogan on the left. President Donald Trump claims that the “anti-police crusade…has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.” On July 22nd he announced he would send a surge of federal agents to police big cities, including Chicago and Albuquerque (although those that had been deployed in Portland, Oregon, are starting to leave.)

5月25日，明尼阿波利斯的一名警察跪杀了乔治·弗洛伊德，这一事件导致美国各城市爆发了大规模的反种族主义抗议活动。“撤资警察”成为了激进左派的一个主流口号，该口号旨在呼吁将用于执法的部分资金重新分配给其他部门。总统唐纳德·特朗普声称，“这场反警察运动……发生了令人震惊的枪击、杀戮和令人发指的暴力犯罪。”7月22日，特朗普宣布将派遣大批联邦探员前往芝加哥，阿尔伯克基地区等警察多的城市，（尽管部署在俄勒冈州波特兰市的联邦探员正在开始撤离。）

But the evidence that America is experiencing a major crime wave is mixed at best. Official national crime statistics, compiled by the FBI, are generally published with over a year’s delay, so researchers have to turn to other sources. David Abrams of the University of Pennsylvania, pulls together data from some two dozen major cities on citycrimestats.com. His figures show that so far this year crime is actually down by around 10% compared with the same period in 2015-19.

但是能够表明美国正在经历一场严重犯罪浪潮的证据十分混杂。美国联邦调查局编制的官方国家犯罪统计数据通常要推迟一年才能公布，因此研究人员不得不转向其他数据来源。宾夕法尼亚大学的大卫·阿勃拉姆斯收集了来自20多个主要城市的数据发布在citycrimestats.com网站上。他的数据显示，今年到目前为止，犯罪率实际上比2015-19年同期下降了10%左右。

It is possible that this drop is simply an artefact of reporting. Covid-19 has meant fewer people on the streets, hence fewer potential witnesses who might call the police. However, Mr Abrams notes that the share of police stops which have resulted in arrests has not changed, which suggests that the drop in crime is genuine. It seems even drug dealers have been adhering to social-distancing guidelines.

犯罪率的下降可能只是一种人为的报道。新冠肺炎意味着街上的人更少，因此可能报警的潜在证人也会更少。然而，阿勃拉姆斯指出，进行拘留的警察局的数量没有改变，这表明犯罪率确实在下降。似乎连毒贩都在遵守社会距离准则。