The United States faces a worrying increase in crime

Published on : 18/04/2022 – 02:17

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The NYC subway shooting has brought issues of security and crime back into the spotlight. The increase in crime and murders in particular is part of a trend recorded since the start of the pandemic. This is one of the challenges of the Biden presidency.

With our correspondent in New York, Loubna Anaki

According to figures recorded by the authorities, murders have increased by nearly 40% since the start of the pandemic in the United States. A trend that also concerns violent crimes of all kinds, assaults, shootings and others.

And according to experts, the health crisis is largely to blame. Covid-19, health restrictions have profoundly affected social services such as the management of mental problems or drug problems and more generally the devices, which as normal, can prevent certain crimes.

Americans also bought weapons en masse at the start of the pandemic. More than 20 million rifles and pistols in 2020 alone. Weapons that are still in circulation in the country and which authorities say play a role in the rise in murders.

With the arrival of summer, conducive to the increase in firearm crimes, the authorities fear that this upward trend will become even more permanent. Even if for the moment, the figures remain well below those recorded during the 1970s or 1990s.

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