Summary
Professor Robert Weisberg weighs in on California’s current homicide rates and how they can be viewed as “respectable.”
Following a downward trend statewide, the number of homicides in the Bay Area’s biggest cities continued to hold steady at a historically low level for the first six months of the year, according to a Chronicle analysis.
The region’s 15 biggest cities — those with populations above 100,000 — tallied 107 homicides from January to June — a small increase from the 101 reported during the same time period in 2014, but an 18 percent drop from the 131 in the first six months of 2013 and a 27 percent drop from the 147 in 2012.
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Robert Weisberg, a criminal justice expert at Stanford Law School, described the statewide homicide rate as “respectable.” “Everybody knows that homicide is way, way down compared to 20 years ago,” he said. “The assumption is that it’s leveled off. We may be in a phase where the numbers are moving up and down to a statistically insignificant degree, so it wouldn’t be a shock if it goes up next year.”
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