“There was no other country that experienced this kind of sudden increase in gun violence,” says Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University who studies the intersections of urban segregation, economic inequality, and violence. It was gun violence, specifically, that sent violent crime soaring.
Americans bought guns in record numbers during the pandemic, and according to an analysis by Rob Arthur and Asher for Vox, there’s evidence that more people were carrying guns in 2020 — even before crime soared that summer. “Guns don't necessarily create violence on their own, but they make violence more lethal,” Sharkey says.
“There was no other country that experienced this kind of sudden increase in gun violence,” says Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University who studies the intersections of urban segregation, economic inequality, and violence. It was gun violence, specifically, that sent violent crime soaring.
Americans bought guns in record numbers during the pandemic, and according to an analysis by Rob Arthur and Asher for Vox, there’s evidence that more people were carrying guns in 2020 — even before crime soared that summer. “Guns don't necessarily create violence on their own, but they make violence more lethal,” Sharkey says.
While experts caution that it’s difficult to definitively prove what caused the rise in violent crime, there are a few other factors that likely contributed to it.
One was the killing of George Floyd by police and the unrest surrounding it, accompanied by a withdrawal in policing that followed. Previous research has shown that high-profile incidents of police violence correspond with a pullback by police and a rise in crime — specifically, robberies and murders. Data following the unrest after Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and elsewhere shows a marked decline in policing and arrests that summer.
“There was a core shift in our understanding of policing in the United States,” Sharkey says. Millions took to the streets to demand an end to police brutality; long-standing cultural assumptions about the authority and legitimacy of police to maintain public safety by any means necessary were called into question.
“That understanding of who’s in charge of public space broke down in a major way,” he says. “What we know is that when people retreat from public space and shelter in their homes it creates this vacuum where public spaces can carry the threat of violence.”
Violent crime is now falling in the U.S., with several cities showing big declines in homicide and violent crime.
That might be in part because the most disruptive phase of the pandemic has passed, but Sharkey thinks that the federal funding provided to cities aimed at public safety made a real difference. “I think the federal funding is probably the best explanation for why the surge in violence didn’t persist and why it has fallen so substantially over the past couple of years. It’s probably a factor that doesn't get the recognition it deserves.”
Still, some of the factors that drove the surge — the preponderance of so many guns and the periodic incidents of deadly police violence – endure. And because of that, experts say that the violence from that period shouldn’t be dismissed as a one-time event, but should be studied to see how to prevent violence in the future.
Even as crime continues to fall, some of the conditions that helped create the rise in violent crime are still with us.
—Marin Cogan, senior correspondent
