History
Beginning in the mid 1960s, crime in the City of Detroit began rising. Homicides especially were on the rise in 1967 due to the Detroit race riots. Racial tensions in the city at the time were high. A couple years later in the 1970s, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young took office. In 1974, Detroit recorded its highest rate of homicides in its history. A total of 714 homicides took place in 1974. To this day, 714 homicides in one year in the City of Detroit is the highest number of homicides recorded in one year. Other crimes in the city, like nonviolent crimes, including arson, theft, and robbery also follow a similar trend.
A look at the overall violent crime rates in Detroit, versus other major populated cities in the United States. The date range begins in 1960 and ends in 2014. Detroit's crime rate begin to dramatically rise beginning in the 1960s. The violent crime rate remained steady throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s.
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Causes
There are many factors and issues that have caused Detroit to have such high crime rates. Starting in the 1960s, increased crime rates in the city were mostly due to lack of stable education, white flight, loss of high paying industrial jobs, discrimination in housing and employment, and unfair government decisions. Another significant cause for the increased rates of crime were due to crackdown of policing on predominately black neighborhoods. This took place during the 1960s, which was the middle of the civil rights era. During this time period, new laws against African Americans also became effective which ended up lengthening prison sentencing. This issue caused numerous problems, especially later in the cities life.