Murder rates

Easily ahead

Nov 4th 2011, 15:04 by The Economist online

Murder has become less common overall in America, but in some cities the crime has risen

IN SEPTEMBER one of New Orleans’s most dangerous men was convicted of second-degree murder and jailed for life. Yet there are signs that Telly Hankton’s reign of terror continues from behind bars. America has one of the highest homicide rates in the developed world, at 4.8 per 100,000 people. While this is less than half what it was in 1980, the rates in the country’s most murderous cities are nearly ten times that. Washington, DC, Detroit and Baltimore have made noticeable improvements over the past decade. But Newark, St Louis and New Orleans, long the nation’s murder capital, have become even deadlier.