What caused the 2020 homicide spike?

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the 2020 surge in homicides was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic but this study argues that it was, instead, primarily driven by the Black Lives Matter protests held across the country. To support this claim, this piece of writing draws a parallel to the ‘Ferguson event’ - a rise in homicides that was seen in 2014 following the tragic shooting of Michael Brown by police. The article also highlights that dissimilar to the recent and the 2014 spiking events, murder rates in other countries, like Germany and the United Kingdom, remained steady or even declined in 2020, indicating that the US spike was a result of factors unique to the country. In the author’s opinion, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the heightened police anxiety that they stoked spearheaded a diminishing in the policing of black localities, which, in turn, catalyzed the increase in homicides. – AI-generated abstract.